Where Did Our Modern View of Hell Come From? | Rethinking Hell, Week 7

Welcome to the kingdom family podcast where we

rediscover our identity as sons and daughters

of Yahweh and learn to live the life of the kingdom.

Let's jump in to today's episode. All right guys,

week seven of rethinking hell. We are diving

in this week to the question of where did our

modern view of hell come from? Just where did

it come from? Because I think many people would

assume, as I did, that our view of hell came

directly from the Bible. But history would tell

us that that is much, much more complicated.

So the goal of this is, again, not to attack

tradition, but it is to invite people to ask,

how did we get here? Um, it's to cause us to

learn how to pump the brakes and learn to ask

questions and not just do what I feel like sometimes

we in the church is really good at. And I would

include myself in that statement, at least in

previous seasons to not just regurgitate information.

So let's start with this. If Moses believed in

eternal conscience torment. Where did he teach

it? Because Moses taught no such thing. In Moses'

era there, they would have had the word sheol,

which is simply the grave and the rim of the

dead. You think about what David says in the

Psalms, if I make my bed in sheol in hell, you're

there with me. but yet we have been conditioned

to believe that hell is separation from God.

Okay, so we can't, if we're supposed to take

stuff literally, then when you read David's verse

there, that if I make my bed in hell, then you're

there. If I'm supposed to read it literally,

then that falls apart because God is literally

there with David making his bed in Sheol. Even

if it's figuratively, I mean it that again You

just have to learn to pump the brakes Stop checking

your brain at the door and learn to ask legitimate

questions wrestle with the scripture invite the

Holy Spirit into your time of reading and Allow

the word to translate a word to you Now is that

always an instant moment? No. Sometimes you need

to sit and chew on it. But take these questions

and these moments to the Holy Spirit and learn

how to wrestle with these thoughts. So again,

we have Sheol the grave or the rim of the dead.

There is no eternal torture language. You have

in the Old Testament, the righteous and the wicked

both going to Sheol. And hope is resurrection.

Not escape from hell Okay, then let us consider

Jesus He never explained hell as if his audience

had never heard of it instead he speaks of Gehenna

and He speaks of Hades. He talks about things

like outer darkness furnace weeping and gnashing

so let's look at some of this if you look at

If you look at outer darkness, the Greek wording

there would mean... I'm trying to break this

down. So the word there for darkness would actually

mean darkness or obscurity. It can be literal

darkness, but in the New Testament, darkness

many times is a metaphor for spiritual blindness,

for ignorance, and life opposed to divine light.

Thayer specifically recognizes this metaphorical

usage elsewhere as ignorance concerning divine

things and its resulting condition. The word

for outer and outer darkness is outer outside

exterior. Thayer again gives us a helpful explanation

of Jesus's phrase, the darkness outside the limits

of the lighted palace. So if you will with me,

picture a first century wedding feast that's

done at night. Inside the house or banquet hall

are lamps, food, celebration, fellowship, joy,

all these different things that you would expect

at a wedding feast or wedding ceremony. But if

all this is going on inside, what is happening

outside? Darkness. So when Jesus says someone

is thrown into the outer darkness his audience

is not picturing some kind of underground torture

chamber filled with flames They picture being

outside the celebration while others are inside

In Matthew chapter 8 makes this especially clear

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

because Jesus says Gentiles will come from East

and West and sit at the table with Abraham, Isaac,

and Jacob, while some of the presumed sons of

the kingdom found themselves outside. Again,

Jesus is simply flipping things back right. Let's

look at Matthew chapter eight. Verses 11 and

12 and it says this let me tell you this Lots

of people will come from east and west and join

the great party of celebration with Abraham Isaac

and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven But the children

of the kingdom will be thrown into our outer

darkness where people will weep and gnash their

teeth Okay. Now we have this weeping and gnashing

of teeth moment Let me go back and look the people

who assumed that were Abraham's descendants.

Therefore We're not automatically in. OK, so.

It's important for us to understand. That participation

in God's kingdom is not determined by some sort

of ethnic privilege. All right, then we have

the weeping and ashing of teeth, the word for

weeping there. It is the anguish of realization,

loss, and regret. And notice something important.

Weeping describes the response to judgment. It

doesn't tell us the duration or the ultimate

purpose of the judgment. Remember, judgment is

never aimed at you and I. Remember that. And

if you take the gnashing of teeth phrase, the

wording there means biting, grinding, or gnashing

the teeth. And here's the problem. We have been

conditioned to believe that they are in so much

physical pain that they are grinding their teeth,

which, you know, OK, maybe that's possible. I

won't discount that. But biblically, gnashing

teeth can also communicate anger. It can communicate

hostility. It can communicate frustration or

rage. Let's look at Matthew not Matthew. Let's

look at Acts chapter 7 verse 54 When Stephen

Acts 7:54

said what Stephen said was a blow right to the

heart when they heard it They gnashed their teeth

against him My friend these people are not burning

in flames They are simply angry. So weeping and

gnashing of teeth creates a powerful emotional

picture that you have grief plus anger plus bitter

realization plus resistance some mourn what they've

lost some rage against what has been exposed

and that actually fits judgment that we discussed

um previously because something has been revealed

and the revelation produces a response think

about what i'm saying Light comes to expose darkness,

and when darkness gets exposed, when that ignorance

of divine things, I like that version of how

Thayer puts that, when that ignorance of divine

things is exposed, it produces a response. And

some will mourn what they've lost, some will

rage against what's being exposed. Some will

welcome that exposure and say, okay, Do what

you need to do. See, we get the opportunity to

choose how we want to respond when it's exposed.

Think about that. The next thing we'll look at

is a furnace of fire. Because a furnace does

not automatically mean eternal torture either.

Furnaces in scripture can be associated with

destruction, but they can also be associated

with testing, with refining and purification.

The question I would challenge you to ask is

which one sounds more Christlike? We can look

at Matthew chapter 13. Jesus is interpreting

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

the parable of the weeds. You have the wheat

and the weeds and it's equal separation and weeds

burn my question Do you see the weeds as people

or do you think more personal reflection? What

do you see the weeds being? Do you see the weeds

as people or more personal reflection like maybe

there's some weeds in me that's growing with

the wheat in me And instead of God plugging it

all out, He allows them to grow together until

the right time to remove the weed. So again,

this is my twist here. What is He separating?

What is happening? Is He separating people? Or

can you apply this to your life personally and

realize that He's coming to do something within

you? That he's coming to root out that ignorance

concerning divine things and leading you more

into the mind of Christ that you and I have been

given Again just something for us to wrestle

with Then we have we do have Greek influence

when it comes to the topic of hell Because Jewish

thought encountered Greek philosophy after Alexander

the Great and I've got to stick to my notes here

because A lot of this was more historical and

not my strong point. But we have things like

Plato's immortal soul. We have the Greek underworld

concepts. We have Hades in Greek mythology versus

Hades in the New Testament. This isn't saying

that scripture adopted Greek mythology. It just

shows the cultural world into which the New Testament

was being written. And so this is important for

us to understand. The New Testament was written

in a world where Jewish and Greek ideas had been

interacting for literally centuries. So now let

me pause. Does this mean that biblical writers

were copying Greek beliefs? No, it does not mean

that, but it does mean words such as Hades came

with a cultural baggage as well. Consider something

that happened roughly 300 years before Jesus

in the 330s BC Alexander the Great conquered

an enormous portion of the ancient world And

he did not just conquer territory Greek language

education philosophy literature and culture spread

with his empire This process that I'm talking

about is a thing called Hellenization, and it's

simply a historical process where non -Greek

people adopted the language, culture, religion,

and customs of ancient Greece. So by the time

Jesus is born, Jewish people had spent generations

living in a world heavily influenced by Greek

culture. Think about even today culture Culture

influences the questions we ask the words we

use what those words mean and in their times

regarding this study The the categories they

used to understand life and death And you know

just a perfect example I am 36 years old we have

in our Ministry there we have 14 15 year old

kids things that words that I could have used

at when I was their age 20 years ago does not

mean the same as it does to them. It's a different

definition because of culture. And the same applies

to older generations of me. They could have used

words in their time that if you say those words

now, it did not mean the same thing. I hope that

makes sense. So Hebrew This is one that I will

have to wrestle with a little bit more just because

of how I've been taught but Hebrew Scriptures

typically would present human beings as a whole

person and Genesis 2 7 does not say God put an

immortal soul inside a temporary body It says

God formed Adam from the dust breathe into him

the breath of life and Adam becoming a living

being So the biblical hope therefore developed

strongly around resurrection, that God is restoring

the person and ultimately creation. In Greek

philosophical traditions, they could approach

the human person much differently. Plato, for

example, lives centuries before Jesus, and in

his thought, there is a much stronger distinction

between body and soul. This is what I would have

grown up believing. That the soul can exist apart

from the body and death can be understood as

the soul being separated from bodily existence

Because the the idea that I grew up with is the

real you is your is your Spirit or soul your

body dies, but your immortal soul lives leaves

your body and then goes somewhere else again

That can sound automatically Christian Until

you start wrestling the question what did Christ

come to redeem and restore? That he's the son

of man and we're sitting in the heavenly realm

as the son of man in the heavenly realm Again,

I'm just wrestling some of this with you this

this challenged me as I was Studying and making

notes for this but just because I am wrestling

with it does not mean That I'm not going to put

it in here to to not share it. I'm just I'm just

going to challenge you to do your own wrestling

with it. Because scripture would teach resurrection.

OK. And resurrection would affect more than just

your soul. Resurrection affects your body, too.

OK, when Jesus resurrected. Was it just his soul

and spirit that got up or did his physical body?

Actually get up and walk out of that grave three

days later Just again Something to wrestle with

I don't I don't know that I can confidently say

That the soul is separate from the body and all

that now. I think it's all in one and I think

Christ Redeemed every aspect of it. That is that

is the gospel that he redeemed body soul and

spirit Anyhow moving on from that point that's

not what we're talking about tonight Just to

give you a different thought and something to

chew on Then we have We also have the Greek underworld

thoughts Greek mythology had an elaborate understanding

of the realm of the dead or Hades the as I went

out every time I talk about this The first cartoon

that comes to mind is the Disney movie Hercules

Greek stories develop descriptions of the dead

judgment rewards and punishments rivers regions

of the underworld and figures such as Hades.

Now here's where things get really important

when we're reading our Bibles. The Old Testament

had a different word, shio, and we've already

learned this. It isn't identical to the later

popular Christian picture of hell, a place where

wicked souls are consciously tortured forever.

Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew scriptures

into Greek, and in the centuries before Jesus,

this translation became known as the Septuagint.

When they encountered Sheol, they frequently

translated it with the Greek word Hades. So when

you see Hades in the New Testament, don't automatically

picture Greek mythology textbook. And don't automatically

picture medieval paintings of hell. The New Testament

writers are using a Greek word within a Jewish

scriptural world. Same word doesn't necessarily

mean same worldview. Hear me what I said. The

same word, Hades and Hades, doesn't necessarily

mean the same worldview. Imagine missionaries

went somewhere where the closest local word for

God was already associated with ideas from that

culture. They might use the existing word while

redefining it through the story that they are

telling. This kind of helps explain why the first

century world gets complicated between the Old

and New Testament Jewish thought was not frozen

in time. Jewish communities encountered Greek

philosophy and culture. Different Jewish groups

developed different understandings of resurrection,

the afterlife, angels, judgment, and the age

to come. And that's actually visible inside the

New Testament in Acts 23 and 8. It says the Sadducees

say there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor

spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

Both of them are Jewish groups. and they don't

even agree on something like the afterlife. Sounds

like 2026 church world. But by Jesus's day, you

have Hebrew scripture, you have centuries of

Jewish interpretation, you have a Persian period

influences, you have Greek language and culture,

you have Roman political power, all forming the

world in which the New Testament appears. And

when the New Testament writers used Greek words,

their original audiences lived in a world where

those words already would have carried different

associations. That's why it's fascinating to

think about the wording that Jesus would use

many times because the wordings that he chose,

he did not use religious language. And I don't

have time to get into that, but just something

to make you and I think. Our job is to determine

what Jesus and the biblical writers meant by

those words, rather than automatically importing

either Greek mythology or our modern definition

of hell into them. So if I read the English word

hell and I immediately imagine eternal fiery

punishment, I may have imported an idea into

the passage that wasn't contained in the original

word. Because Hades does not mean eternal conscience

torment remember We read last week revelation

Revelation 20:14

20 verse 14 that said death and Hades themselves

are thrown into the lake of fire Again just something

for us to think about So whatever we conclude

about the lake of fire that alone should make

us cautious about simply equating Hades With

the final state of hell, so with anything in

scripture my challenge to you Would be to work

backwards don't begin with the English word and

give it that definition Learn to work backwards

So like what Greek word is underneath it? How

was the word used in scripture? What Hebrew concept

stands behind it? What did it mean in its first

century world? And from there, then begin to

build your theology. Now, it's also fascinating

because many people would assume the earliest

Christians also believed the same thing. Again,

growing up, I did not think about early church

fathers, quote unquote. And I would have never

thought about early church fathers until the

last couple of years really. But instead, there

were several different streams. You have those

that did believe in eternal conscience torment.

You have those who believed in conditional immortality.

And you have those that believed in ultimate

restoration. You've got people like Ignatius

of Antioch. who lived in 35 to 107. You have

Irenaeus from 130 to 202. Clement of Alexandria

150 to 215. Origen who lived from 185 to 253

-254 range. Gregory of Nicaea who lived from

335 to 395. Augustine of Hippo who lived from

354 to 430. And all six of them I just mentioned

had different beliefs. Now the two earlier ones,

they believed in conditional immortality. Clement

of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nicaea. They

believed in ultimate restoration. And then Augustine

of Hippo would have believed in the eternal conscience

torment from year 354. So there was not agreement

with this. So we have Augustine who embraced

the immortality of the soul. He would have argued

strongly for eternal punishment. and he became

one of the dominant theological voice in the

Latin West. From there, his influence spread

through medieval Christianity. We have, I'm not

going to go too much into this. You can go and

study this for yourself. We have a guy named

Dante who lived around 1265 to 1321. And so if

you think about Demons with pitchforks and Satan

ruling kale and all that and maybe think where

did that come from? most of that imagery comes

from a divine comedy called the Inferno Which

is not from scripture It was an Italian poet

who? He wrote the Divine Comedy. What's a long

narrative poem divided into three parts Inferno,

which was held purgatory in heaven That and but

again, he's not writing Dante was not writing

another book of the Bible. He was writing medieval

Christian poetry So just again something for

us to wrestle with and think about where do we

get these ideas from Dante had a lot of influence

in the church world and I don't think he meant

to do that Then you have people like, if you

think about modern evangelicalism, you have Jonathan

Edwards and Charles Finney. Their preaching was

not necessarily wrong in every aspect, but it

shaped how many Christians came to think of salvation

primarily as escaping hell. Charles Finney said,

sinners do not see while God threatens sin was

such a terrible punishment. They love it so well

themselves that they cannot see why God should

look at it in such a light as to think it worthy

of everlasting punishment. Let me read that again.

Sinners do not see while God threatens sin with

such terrible punishment. They love it so well

themselves that they cannot see why God should

look at it in such a light as to think it worthy

of everlasting punishment. Now, where Finney

and I would agree He rejected the Augustinian

idea that human beings are born sinful. He said,

if God creates something inherently sinful so

that sin is unavoidable and then punishes that

person eternally for doing what their nature

compelled them to do, that would be unjust. And

that I would have to agree with Phineon. Phiney

believed, though, that humanity isn't born morally

guilty or depraved. The people freely choose

selfishness or sin. Therefore, they are genuinely

morally responsible. Christ's atonement makes

forgiveness possible. Those who repent and believe

receive pardon. Those who persist in rebellion

remain under God's governmental penalty. That

penalty is endless conscience misery. He taught

that the wages of sin are not merely physical

death or even spiritual death, but eternal He

greatly believed hell was eternal conscience

torment. Jonathan Edwards, for example, preached

in America's first great awakening. This had

been 1730s to 40s. And this is an excerpt from

his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry

God. The God that holds you over the pit of hell,

much as one holds a spider or some loathsome

insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully

provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire.

He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but

to be cast in the fire. He is of purer eyes than

to bear to have you in his sight. You are ten

thousand times more abominable in his eyes than

the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours.

This idea stemmed from John Calvin because Calvin

divides faith, describes its properties and divides

the human race into the elect, which are the

chosen ones and the reprobate, the damned. The

elect are known by their certain assurance of

salvation, which is the principle hinge on which

faith turns. Without the surety of confidence

in one's own salvation, one is not a true believer

and has no place among the elect. The damned,

however, never go so far as to penetrate that

secret revelation which the scripture confines

to the elect. They are completely unable to apprehend

the immutable will of God or embrace his truth

with constancy. So our modern imagination of

hell is the result of scripture It's the result

of Jewish imagery the Greek philosophical influences

church Excuse me church tradition medieval literature

and revival preaching all combined and really

regurgitated many times over and over Again,

my goal is not to dismiss history But to carefully

distinguish each layer so that we can return

to the biblical text with fresh eyes and may

I say this with a Christological lens and learning

how to see things different So again three views

were there In if you look at the early church

you do have eternal conscience torment there

But they also have something called conditional

and more spirituality and ultimate restoration

Let me see if I can maybe help Break those down

just a little bit for us Let me pull that there

we go So if you look at eternal torment the wicked

suffer forever and conscience torment Its punishment

is endless and unending evil continues to exist

eternally separate from God then you have conditional

immortality which is immortality is a gift from

God not something everyone receives the wicked

ultimately perish they are destroyed not tortured

forever excuse me the wicked ultimately perish

they are not destroyed they are destroyed not

tortured forever So that's the conditional immortality.

It doesn't believe in eternal conscience torment.

It just means they believe the wicked are just

simply destroyed but not tortured endlessly.

And then you have ultimate reconciliation which

means God's love and grace will ultimately restore

all things and every person. This belief would

be God's love is stronger than sin and death.

All will be healed, reconciled and restored.

Judgment and fire purify and restore, not merely

punish. So that would be kind of the three early

views of what we have. And when we get to the

end of this, I will share with you where I stand

and what I believe and kind of give you that

viewpoint. As far as that goes. But just an interesting

closing point. I probably have mentioned this

before, but just something for us to really think

about is the church has no problem in believing

that we're all included in the fall of Adam.

Yet for some reason we wrestle with and try to

give steps to be included in the finished work

of Christ. That that to me is a problem. that

we need to really think about and wrestle with

that thought in my opinion um but that's that's

just me you can believe what you would like to

believe um so next week we will jump into kind

of what i believe um and that might take a couple

of weeks to get through we'll see um Know I tried

teaching that in our first Bible study a couple

weeks ago and may have gotten two slides into

my notes Granted Holy Spirit showed up in a different

way. So we Learned to just walk flow with the

Holy Spirit whatever Holy Spirit wants to do.

That's what we do But until next week guys be

blessed and guys learn how to release the kingdom

life around you Be blessed Thanks for spending

some time with me today on the Kingdom Family

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