Final Musings on Hell

This is the last post I will make on “Love Wins”. And this one is really not about the book, but about a different spin on the word “Hell” than that offered by Rob Bell. Since Bell takes up the position that everyone will eventually come into God’s presence, that would logically suggest that Hell cannot be a place of eternal torment.

He essentially argues that Hell is the bad things that happen to people in this life. For instance, on p. 70 he tells of going to Rwanda and seeing the mutilation caused by evil men in that country and then says, “Do I believe in a literal Hell? Of course. Those aren’t metaphorical missing arms and legs.” (p. 71). He says that there are “…all kinds of hells” (p.79). I would not use the word Hell to describe what he mentions in this section, but he is clearly correct that evil is playing a role in the world in which we live and each one of us is given a choice to side with evil or not.

In contrast I would suggest that the place to begin thinking about Hell is Heaven. In an earlier post I agreed with Bell’s assessment that the afterlife is not some spiritual, nebulous existence, but is a physical experience on a redeemed and transformed earth. If the afterlife for disciples of Jesus is NOT a spiritual existence, why would we assume that the afterlife for those who have rejected him would be a spiritual existence?

So one question I think pertinent to the whole discussion is, “Where is Hell?” Those who do not think in physical terms are going to say it is a spiritual place of torment. However, that is not how the Bible presents it. Hell is an actual place. It is the valley of Hinnom (see this post). If we are going to take the Bible seriously, then it seems that we should take it on its own terms.

This would seem to suggest that we either take the term Hell literally, in which case Jesus is talking about people being tormented in the valley of Hinnom for eternity, or we take it metaphorically and conclude that he is using the valley of Hinnom as an illustration for the destiny of those who reject the Lord.

I want to suggest that it is the latter. It is not uncommon for Jesus to use a place to make a point. For instance, while at Caesarea Philippi, Peter made his famous confession of Jesus as the Christ. In response Jesus said that the gates of Hades would not prevail against the kingdom (Matt. 16:18). It appears that what Jesus is doing here is equating Hades with the pagan worship of Pan, since a temple of Pan had been at that location.

In the case of Hell then, what Jesus would be doing is using a place known for evil and destruction to speak of the lot of those who have chosen evil and destruction over God and life. This makes perfectly good sense if, as has been thought, the Jews burned their trash in the valley of Hinnom. This is because the New Testament seems to indicate that the lot of those who choose the former route is destruction (Matt. 7:13; 10:28; Jn. 17:12; Gal. 6:8; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2 Pet. 3:7).

Unlike platonic philosophy, the Bible does not depict the soul/spirit as eternal. What the story of scripture says to us is that humans only have life if God provides it. Therefore, when we die we are dead unless God raises us. And how does he raise us? Not in some spiritual form, but in bodies. If we are not raised, we would simply remain dead. Destroyed.

I realize, of course, that this goes against the grain of what many Christians have thought, but simply because something has been accepted teaching does not make it true (I think that Martin Luther taught us this). There is not enough space here to go into all of the arguments, so if you’re interested I would point you to a couple of books. While many will disagree with my assesment, I think we can all agree that what is desired is life with God rather than whatever we understand as Hell.

Edward Fudge, The Fire that Consumes. I am essentially following Fudge’s arguments in this post. Here is the Amazon link to Fudge’s book.

Edward Fudge and Robert Peterson, Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue. Patterson takes up the traditional position in this debate. Here is the Amazon link to the book.

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