Though the research is my own, the following is, of course, inspired and informed by Rob Bell's Love Wins.
“Enough of this terror! We deserve to know light and grow evermore lighter and lighter!” I struggle to think of a matter more contentious and emotional than Hell. We are controlled, pushed, pulled, dragged through life by the fear of an eternal torment for us and our loved ones. I drive around town and see billboards declaring that Judgment Day is May 21, 2011—and I am terrified! I regress and start to wonder if God will send me to hell…for not believing in hell…but this is insanity! A God who would do this is nothing but the ultimate tyrant, and if he does exist, I could not love him, could not stroke his ego, could not encourage his narcissism. If he were to send me to hell, I would go willingly and let it be my eternal act of civil disobedience. But I cannot believe in such a God. I believe in a God who is better than that, a God of unthinkable love who is in the process of reconciling all things to himself—even the Hitlers and Stalins and Osama bin Ladens of this world. I believe in a hope that is bigger than hell.
To start off with, let’s be clear: there is no clear reference to “Hell” in the Bible. The Old Testament refers only to “Sheol;” the New Testament to “Hades.” Both describe the realm of the dead, where all people, both holy and unholy go. (The word "Hell" itself is the same, a pre-Christian Old English word (hel) for the realm of the dead.) During the intertestamental period, this belief was nuanced so that there were two areas within the one realm of the dead: “Abraham’s bosom” where the good reclined in Abraham’s lap at a forever-feast, and a place of fire where the evil went, with a chasm or river separating the two. In Greek mythology, this river could be crossed by the boatman Charon; in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the chasm is impassable. Regardless, this is absolutely not a “heaven” or “hell,” but only one single realm of the dead, Hades, which we must remember will itself, along with death, be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14, more on that later). Yes: this realm of the dead is an enemy of God’s plan, and it must be destroyed.
Other than Sheol and Hades, the only other word translated “hell” in the Bible is Gehenna (Gk. geenna)—or the Valley of Hinnom, a valley outside Jerusalem, notorious in the Old Testament: a fact of which Jesus was necessarily conscious. This is the place where the Israelites sacrificed their children to the god Moloch (whether this was a sacrifice involving death or only of passing the child through fire in a purification rite is a matter of much debate; 2 Kings 23:10, 2 Chr. 28:3, 33:6, Jer. 7:31-2, Jer. 19). This is the only thing that Jesus could have in mind when he so negatively refers to the valley. The idea that the Valley of Hinnom was Jerusalem’s city dump where fire burned continuously to consume rubbish and corpses is almost certainly false, as there is no archaeological or literary evidence of this up until the 12th century, when a Jewish rabbi hypothesized that this might be the case! Therefore, when Jesus is talking about Gehenna, he is almost certainly referencing the judgment prophesied to take place in the Valley of Hinnom in Jeremiah 7:30-34 and 19, where all of Israel’s evil will be laid bare and turned against herself—where her enemies will come against her, she will eat her own sons and daughters, and her dead will be more than the earth can hold so that they will be piled up until the place can only be referred to as the Valley of Slaughter. Perhaps Judas was the first person to know this sorrow of Gehenna, as he killed himself in the Potter’s Field, likely in the Valley of Hinnom (cf. Jer. 19:1), his own evil deeds having destroyed him.
Knowing all this, we’re left having to interpret what Jesus meant, as Gehenna is obviously a metaphor—not a factual statement about hell. No matter what you believe about hell, you necessarily must have interpreted that belief from a metaphor for which there are likely other plausible interpretations. When I consider the traditional interpretation of Hell, the reality of the Valley of Hinnom seems to expose its blatant absurdity. Is Gehenna the place where God sacrifices his own children in the fire—though he was, of course, vehemently opposed to the human practice of child sacrifice in the Valley of Hinnom? Impossible! On the other hand, if the Moloch ritual was actually a purification rite, this would make better sense of Jesus’ references to Gehenna (especially in light of other supposed “Hell” references to follow). Detestable though it was, that pagan purification ritual was a symbol of God’s coming true purification by fire.
Speaking of purification by fire, let’s consider the lake of fire and our abominably bad English translations of the Bible. It makes me furious how our translation of the Bible is informed by our preconceived dogmas instead of vice versa (e.g., Gk. lestes being translated as “thief,” though “insurrectionist” is almost certainly the correct translation in many cases). Take Revelation 20:10: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” The Lake of Fire is also apparently the destination of death, Hades, and those whose names are not written in the Book of Life (Rev. 20:13-15). As translated, this verse is a death blow to any conception of “hell” as a temporary purification, a small part of God’s grand plan of reconciling all things to himself. But then, by golly, I look up the words for “tormented” and “brimstone,” and I am danger of exploding from simultaneous joy and fury. The word for “tormented” is bansanizo, the primary meaning of which is “to test (metals) by the touchstone, which is a black siliceous stone used to test the purity of gold or silver by the colour of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal” (www.studylight.org). So—will they be “tormented” for ever and ever? Or will they be tested for ever and ever—and when they are finally pure, retrieved and restored and reconciled with rejoicing? I want to scream because the answer is so obvious. But what will be the means of their purification? First, fire, which scripturally is often a metaphor for refinement and purification (especially when connected with the last days, cf. Malachi 3:2, “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.”), and second, brimstone. But wait—what is brimstone? The Greek word is theion, meaning "divine incense, because burning brimstone was regarded as having power to purify, and to ward off disease” (www.studylight.org). Is there any doubt left?
Of course—because of all of the references in the New Testament to “eternal punishment” or variants thereof. The word for “eternal” in these verses is aionos, the adjective form of aion, which means either "age" or "a period of time stretching beyond the horizon." Therefore, aionos could also mean either "of a certain (defined) age" or "of an age without known beginning or end." Some translations have aionos as "of the Ages" (i.e., the fire of the Ages, the judgment of the Ages, the life of the Ages). Another possible translation, citing the former meaning of aion, is “age-lasting.” Aionos, then, can be either quantitative or qualitative. It is also interesting to note that the Hebrew word for “forever” is olam (LXX, aionos), which more than half of the time could not possibly mean eternity. For example, Jonah was in the belly of the whale forever (olam, LXX aionos)—that is, three days!
When one looks at how aionos is used in the New Testament, something surprising comes up. While it is used to modify “life” 49 times (i.e., “eternal life” or “life of the Ages”), it is used to modify forms of death at a minimum of four times and a maximum of eight. It seems that the writers of the Bible were either much more comfortable with or much more focused on the life that stretches beyond the horizon than the death that does so. Let’s turn to those verses involving “everlasting death” now. To start with, Matthew 18:18 and 25:41 both talk about "everlasting fire" (aionos pyr, “the fire of the Ages”). Of course, we must here remember that, scripturally, fire is primarily a refining element, and interpret scripture in light of scripture, remembering Revelation 20. Next, Matthew 25:46 has the phrase translated "everlasting punishment" (aionos kolasis). Kolasis here is actually a horticultural term for pruning (www.studylight.com)! The metaphor here, then, is that people will be pared down, their evilness cut away so that their goodness can thrive and flourish! Furthermore, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 has "everlasting destruction" (aionos olethros). Olethros indeed indicates destruction, but a “destruction required for and preceding renewal” (www.wikipedia.org, alas. For a more reliable explanation, see 1 Cor. 5:5)! These are the four concrete references to “everlasting deaths.” More ambiguous in their reference to a hellish sort of place are Mark 3:29 with "eternal sin" or "judgment" (aionos krisis) and Hebrew 6:2 with "eternal judgment" (aionos krima). But does "judgment" always have to be negative? Or can you have pleasant judgments? Those who are absolved of guilt are judged just as surely as those who are condemned, so we can hardly definitively decide what type of judgment is being referred to here—or what the sentence would be if condemned. The last two references are in the ever-so-strange book of Jude. First, in Jude 1:6, fallen angels are held in "everlasting chains" (aionos desmos). The funny thing is that they will apparently be let out of these "everlasting" chains on the day of judgment! Second is Jude 1:7, where Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of those who will undergo "eternal fire" (aionos pyr). But they have apparently already experienced the "everlasting fire"—in historical time! In retrospect then, we have the Greek words geenna, bansanizo, theion, pyr, kolasis, olethros, krisis, krima, and desmos—all of which, properly translated, create a theology of a hell that purifies and refines so that one might be reconciled and restored, that prunes and pares so that one might thrive and flourish!
And this is good news, right? This makes sense, doesn’t it? It jives with our scriptural conception of God as a God of never-stopping, never-ending, never-giving up, inexorable, inescapable, inevitable, unrelenting, unstoppable, unalterable, unconditional Love, don’t you think? Wouldn’t we rather believe that God is a God who will never even think about giving up and relinquishing his beloved to an eternal hell? But, worse, we have turned God into a God who actively torments evildoers infinitely for their finite crimes. Why are we so resistant to the hope that God will, indeed, reconcile all things to himself, as he said he would (Col. 1:20)? Why do we refuse to believe in a God that gracious, to listen to story that fantastic, to acknowledge a news that good? The door is open: we are free to flee the politics of fear, the theology of coercion and manipulation, out into the bright, wide open spirituality of grace and mercy and justice and love. We are told again and again of the wide scope of God’s plan, of “the renewal of all things” (Mt. 19:28), that “all people will see God’s salvation” (Lk. 3:6), that “all received grace in place of grace already given” (Jn. 1:16), that Jesus “will draw all people to [him]self” (Jn. 12:32), that “all are justified freely by his grace” (Rom. 3:24), that God plans “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph. 1:10) and to “reconcile to himself all things” (Col. 1:20). When Jesus is compared to Adam, we are told that, “just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people” (Rom. 5:18) and that, “for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Can you hear creation singing out this truth: that God “will have all men to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4)? This is God’s will, and I pray with God, “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” and trust that it will—instead of assuming otherwise.
Now, of course, this is not universalism. This isn’t the idea that God will just willy-nilly, loosey-goosey let any old person into the Kingdom of Heaven. If he did, it would not be heaven; it would be hell. There must necessarily be judgment, and those who are unjust and wicked must necessarily not be let into God’s kingdom until they are purified and refined, painful though that process might be. God is good enough to make sure that happens. No, it is not universalism, but it is the faith and hope that God wasn’t lying when he said that his kingdom’s “gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there” (Rev. 21:25)! People are free to come and go. There is still choice—as there always and forever must be with love. And one day—one day, “all people will see God’s salvation” (Col. 1:20). This is our gospel. This is our hope.
