Objection 89: The Bible repeatedly speaks of hell, and of the wicked going to Hell, or of fallen angels going to Hell. This proves the conscious state of the dead.
The short answer is that the Hebrew and Greek words translated as “Hell” usually just mean “the grave.”
In the Old Testament, “hell” is always translated from the Hebrew word sheol, which means the “unseen place” or the grave. The idea of fire or punishment is not found or implied in the word. Sheol was the destination of everyone (Psalm 89:48) even righteous men like Jacob (Gen. 37:35) and Isaiah (Isa. 38:10), so there is no sense in interpreting sheol as the place of punishment or of burning.
In the New Testament the word “hell” is translated from one of three Greek words: in one instance, tartaros (the abyss), in ten instances, hades (the grave), and in twelve instances Gehenna (the burning place).
Tartaroo: The Dark Abyss
The one instance of tartaroo, “dark abyss,” is found in in 2 Peter 2:4, telling how the fallen angels were cast out of heaven and into "darkness." The passage declares that these angels are "reserved unto judgment." Their judgment will take place in the future. (See, 2 Peter 2:4; Rev. 12:7-10.)
That said, 2 Peter 2:4 should not be taken literally. Tartarus is the mythological underworld of the ancient Greeks, where the Titans were sent for punishment. It is not a real place.
Scripture is clear that when Satan was ejected from heaven, he took a third of the angels with him. (Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:3-4; Revelation 12:9) These fallen angels, often called demons, are active agents in a spiritual war between the forces of good and evil, just as Satan is. (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:15; Luke 4:35; John 8:49; Matthew 12:43; Luke 8:30; Acts 16:16; Luke 7:21; Matthew 10:1; Revelation 16:14)
It makes no sense that some of the fallen angels should be locked in an abyss awaiting judgment, while others are free to roam about tempting us, sometimes even possessing people. Hence, it would appear that 2 Peter 2:4, and also Jude 6, are telling us with figurative language that Satan and his angels had their time of probation in heaven, before being cast out. Now their eternal destiny is fixed, locked in, as it were, awaiting only the execution of judgment (Mat. 25:41). So while they are not physically jailed in a dungeon or abyss, spiritually they are.
Hades
Like sheol, hades also generally means "the nether world, the grave, death." (See, Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon.) The Septuagint, the 3rd Century BC Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, almost without exception uses hades as the translation of sheol.
Dr. Luke, in quoting an Old Testament prophecy of Christ: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol” (Psalm 16:10), translates sheol as hades. (See, Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27.) But Luke’s quotation also raises this question: Does anyone really think Christ went to Hell when he died? We’ve seen, in answering Objection 85, that some argue that Christ (and the believing thief) went straight to heaven when they died. So which is it, Heaven or Hell?
The truth, of course, is that it is neither. Sheol and hades in Psalm 16:10 and Acts 2:27 simply mean the grave; Christ was in the grave from Friday evening to Sunday morning. But, praise be to God, He would not leave Christ in that grave!
In 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” death is translated from a cognate of thanatos, whereas “grave” is from a cognate of hades, yet more evidence that hades is the grave. Incidentally, 1 Corinthians 15:55 expresses much the same idea as Hosea 13:14, where sheol is again translated as “grave.”
Let’s examine each of the ten instances in which hades is translated “Hell” in the King James Bible, New Testament. In Matt. 11:23 (Luke 10:15 is a parallel passage) Jesus says,
“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell [hades]: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”
Jesus is condemning those cities because, although he did most of his miracles in them, their people failed to repent and believe. Was the whole city of Caperneum going to be physically removed to heaven, but now the city will go physically to Hell? Would Sodom really still have been there fifteen hundred years later if Jesus had worked miracles there? This is obviously figurative language.
Jesus is saying that Caperneum (and Chorazin and Bethsaida) had an opportunity that almost no one else in world history had: to see the Messiah in person, working miracles. And yet they rejected Him and hence are deserving of severe punishment. Jesus is speaking figuratively to make His point.
In Mat. 16:18, Jesus tells Peter,
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell [hades] shall not prevail against it.”
Here Jesus uses hades a stand-in, not only for death and the grave, but for spiritual forces of wickedness and evil. None of these will prevail against the church built on the Stone that builders rejected, which is become the Cornerstone.
Luke 16:23 is the story of the rich man and Lazarus, which we have already dealt with in answer to Objection 87. Here again, Jesus is meeting people where they are, using figurative language to make a point that has nothing to do with the state of the dead.
We just discussed Acts 2:27 above. Acts 2:31 is merely Peter explaining to his listeners at Pentecost that, yes, Psalm 16:10 was indeed a Messianic prophecy and it was fulfilled by Jesus Christ who indeed was not left in the grave to rot, but was resurrected.
In Rev. 1:18, Christ says,
“I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
Christ “has the keys” to both the grave and the burning place, but the grave fits better. Why does Christ have the keys to hades, that is, the grave? Because he was alive, then dead, and now he is alive forevermore; because He died, He slept in the grave, and then He was resurrected, so He has the keys to the grave. Again, hades is simply the grave.
Rev. 6:8 tells us:
“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
In this usage, hades could mean the grave, since many are to be killed with the sword. It could also mean very bad things, evil, as in Mat. 16:18
Finally, we come to Revelation 20:13-14:
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
This passage is very strong evidence against the notion of disembodied spirits going to straight to heaven or “Hell” when they die. This is a teaching about the resurrection of the unsaved dead, the Second Resurrection, which takes place after the millennium in heaven, when the New Jerusalem descends to earth.
Some of these dead came from the sea, meaning the sailors and passengers lost or buried at sea over the millennia. The Greek term for them is nekrous, “the dead ones.” To this day, in medical terminology, dead tissue is described as “necrotic.” Others came from thanatos, the personification of death in Greek culture, and from hades, the grave.
If “Hell” meant the burning place, wouldn’t all the unsaved dead have come from there? Why would some come from the sea, and some from a generalized “death”? Clearly, the unsaved dead have not yet faced judgment; they are resurrected from wherever they lay—in the sea, in the grave, or just dead, thanatos—only then to face judgment.
This passage is also clearly teaching us that death is real. The believers in an immortal soul do not believe in death and the grave at all; they believe immortality is inherent and universal. No one really dies, they argue, the “dead” just go on living forever, either in heaven or in hell. But Rev. 20:14 tells us that death and the grave are real, and they will not be done away with until after the second resurrection, the execution of judgment, and the second death of the unsaved. Only then will death and the grave themselves be permanently done away with, cast into the lake of fire to be destroyed forever.
Gehenna: the Burning Place
Gehenna is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Hinnom, the name of a valley near Jerusalem, that was used as a dump, where the refuse, including animal carcasses and dead bodies, were consumed in a fire constantly kept going (See Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon.) Hence, Gehenna is the only one of the words translated "hell" in the Bible that actually does contain the concept of fire or burning.
Let’s look at the twelve instances in the King James Version New Testament where Gehenna is translated as “Hell”:
Matt. 5:22 states, “anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” This is clearly referring to a burning place.
Mat. 5:29-30 (Mat. 18:9 is another instance, and Mark 9:43 and 45 and 47 are parallel passages) states, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
It is interesting that this passage speaks of people being case bodily into Hell, not as disembodied spirits.
Mat. 10:28 (Luke 12:5 is parallel) states, “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.”
This clearly states that the soul can be killed in the burning place. It is not immortal.
Luke 12:5 is clearer from an Adventist prospective, in that “soul” is not used:
“But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”
In other words, “don’t fear the first death, from which you can be resurrected, fear being cast into Hell, which is the second death.”
Mat. 23:15 states, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
“Child of Hell” is figurative language, obviously.
Mat. 23:33 states, “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
James 3:6 is using figurative language: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
Now in connection with the twelve times Gehenna is used two facts stand out:
1. The “body” as well as the soul is said to be “cast into hell.” Twice is the phrase used, "the whole body." (See Matt. 5:29-30; 10:28.) Note that the wicked are here said to be "cast into" the fire, as though to describe the act of hurling an object into the flames. Note, further, the interesting fact, which is surely more than a mere coincidence in words, that the very same word "cast" (even in the original Greek) is repeatedly used in the various Gehenna texts. In no less than six of these texts we read, "Cast into hell [Gehenna]."
2. In not one of the twelve instances does the text tell when the wicked will be “cast into Hell.” For the time when this happens, we must consult passages such as Rev. 20:11-15, which we discussed above, and Mat. 25:31-41.
From all the foregoing we reach the conclusion that the Bible does not support the idea that the wicked go into the flames of hell at death, but rather that the day when the impenitent objects of God's wrath are "cast into Gehenna" is still in the future.