by Dr. James & Natalie Ricks
This world has inherited false, fear driven doctrines from antiquity and superstition with this distorted viewpoint helped by misunderstood scriptures. Using common sense and careful, precise translations of the word “hell” these misunderstandings can be clarified.
What kind of God do we worship? The premise behind the ever burning, torturing hellfire of Dante’s imagination is one of a sadistic deity. Pagans may see some of their gods in this fashion but Christians know that the true God is slow to anger and full of mercy. Jonah knew this and that is why he did not want to warn Israel’s enemy, Nineveh to repent.
Jonah 4:2, “So he prayed to the LORD, and said, ‘Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.’” (NKJV)
Numbers 14:18-19, “The LORD is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.
“Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Moses, who knew God deeply, relied upon God’s mercy and graciousness when asking forgiveness for rebellious Israel. God certainly is not sadistic. If the ever burning hellfire doctrine were true then God would not only be allowing torture for sinners forever, but would be rewarding the evil devil with more victims to torture.
The mainstream religious public believes that if the devil can encourage you to sin and not repent, he will be rewarded with more people to torture in hell forever and ever. God would then be rewarding Satan for his evil works! It does not make sense. God would thereby be encouraging Satan for vile evil by allowing or creating such a hell. We will now clarify the common sense Biblical truth about hell.
Some pagans did worship evil, cruel gods. Some even today, believe we must use this total fear tactic to get people to repent. We will review one of the favorite Bible texts for the truth.
John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not PERISH but have everlasting life.
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Note the word perish. The penalty for the unsaved is to perish. They will not exist anymore. God is not moving them to a torture dungeon. They will not endure never ending torture by Satan. They simply will perish. Further, we see that Jesus’ purpose is to SAVE people, not to condemn them to torture if they fail to repent. The majority of people on this planet have not been saved to Christianity; therefore are we to believe that they are all going to be tortured forever upon death? This is an outrageous belief about our God! This is not the only day of salvation.
There are three different Greek words that are translated as hell. The word hades simply means a grave. The second word, tartaroo, means a condition of restraint. It is only used for the fate of the demons. Note II Peter 2:4. The third word is gehenna it is a place of punishment, not punishing, in the valley of Hinnom––a burning garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.
Nominal Christians believe that upon death one goes to either heaven or the torture pit, hell. They have been taught that our consciousness continues into the afterlife upon death. Does the Bible support such a belief?
Ecclesiastes 9:5, “For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten.”
Psalms 146:4-5, “His Spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.
“Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God:” (WEB)
The Bible clearly says people who pass away are not awake somewhere else. The only hope they have regarding the future lies with the true God. People who die are asleep awaiting either their eternal reward or their first real opportunity to be saved and gain entry into God’s kingdom.
I Thessalonians 4:13-16, “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Human beings do not have an immortal soul. Check the church website for the booklet “Do You Have an Immortal Soul?” The theme of the New Testament is the resurrection of the dead who are asleep in their graves awaiting the second coming of the Messiah.
I Corinthians 15:20, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
I Corinthians 15:51-52, “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
Paul is explaining that people are awakened from sleep to be resurrected into God’s family.
This place outside Jerusalem was a city garbage dump that used fire to consume the trash filth and dead bodies dumped there. This Greek word Gehenna was use by Jesus consistently to refer the “hellfire” that would burn up sinners. Gehenna is a synonym for the Lake of Fire into which the unrepentant, defiant sinners will be cast into at the end of times. The Last Great Day will give everyone a chance to understand the Bible and then truly repent and be judged. The vast majority will be converted because God’s truth will be surrounding them unlike in our world, where all nations are deceived. See Revelation 12:9.
Revelation 20:12-14, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is that of life. And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books according to their works.
“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged each according to their works: and death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire.” (DBY)
The Bible will be opened up to everyone and the majority will see how wonderful the world is with God’s government and His laws. They will repent and have their names written in the book of life and join God’s family. The defiantly wicked will be resurrected to face the lake of fire which will consume them quickly. They will perish just as it says in John 3:16. It will be hard not to be converted in this end time period.
Isaiah 11:9-10, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.
“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, standing as a banner of the peoples: the nations shall seek it; and his resting-place shall be glory.”
All the world will know God. They will all partake of His grace and kindness. No one will be tortured forever. The small percentage of defiant sinners will be put out of their misery. They will no longer live their evil ways which make them and others miserable. They are mortal and will be erased.
You may ask about the verses that say this fire shall never be quenched. “What about eternal fire?” some may say. We examine one such verse.
Jude 1:7, “As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (NKJV)
If you go to the Middle East and locate the ruins of Sodom, are these cities still burning? No! Of course not! The common sense meaning is that the fire burns until it has nothing else to feed upon. It completely consumes the material. No human being will burn forever in hell fire. The fallen evil spirits will suffer forever, but not mankind. Their suffering is mental anguish not physical pain.
II Peter 2:4, “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.”
Revelation 20:10, “The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
The word “are” was added by the translator based on their misunderstandings. It should be translated where the beast “was” because human beings would burn up instantly in such a fire, but not spirit beings. Man will have the opportunity to see God’s grace. Satan and his demons deserve their fate of confinement forever in the bottomless pit, their hell.
