Death and Hell

Death and Hell

For as long as man has been on the earth, most have not understood the concept of death. Webster defines death as "a permanent cessation of vital functions: the end of life." This misunderstanding of the true nature of death has even affected great characters of the Bible. Job's wife told him to "curse God and die" (2:9), believing that this would bring an end to his troubles. Job of course knew better. In Ecclesiastes 9:5, Solomon, writing from the viewpoint of one who is searching for meaning in life without God said, "For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten." The Sadducees did not believe in any resurrection because they thought that no evidence for such could be found in the Pentateuch. This was the reasoning behind the question they asked the Lord in order to trap Him in Matthew 22:23ff. Some religious groups take this idea of death, along with passages in Revelation referring to the "second death," (2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8) to mean that there is no eternal punishment for the wicked, but rather that they are annihilated, that the eternity of their punishment comes from the fact that it is final.

If most people are mistaken in their definition of death, what then is the true meaning of it? I believe that God gave the proper definition of death in the very beginning. In Genesis 2:16,17, God told the man, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die." We know that Adam and Eve both ate the fruit. What happened to them on the day they did so? Those who cling to man’s erroneous definition of death often teach that Adam and Eve began to die that day because they were no longer in the garden, and indeed this was a consequence of their sin, albeit an indirect one. I propose that Adam and Eve died that day, because God said they would. In Genesis 3:23, 24, God followed up His promise with action. God said they would die if they ate the fruit, they ate, and God put them out of the garden, separating them from His presence. God's definition of death, therefore, is separation, not merely ceasing to exist.

This death comes in many forms:

The most obvious, of course, is physical death. James 2:26 says "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." In Luke 16:19ff., Christ tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, who, after they both had died, continued to exist in other realms. In Matthew 22:29-32 Christ answered the Sadducees' ridiculous question with God's affirmation to Moses: “‘I Am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (emphasis added).

There is also the death to sin that we experience when we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6:1-11, esp. 4).

Also there is spiritual death to consider. This is the idea of being spiritually away from God. This was what Christ had in mind when He told the man in Matthew 8:22 to "Follow Me; and allow the dead to bury their own dead." Also in Luke 15:32, in the parable of the lost son, the father describes the younger son this way: "for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live." Romans 6:23 refers to this: "For the wages of sin is death…" This spiritual separation is the "second death" referred to in Revelation 2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8.

This brings us back to the earlier question of the idea that there is no eternal punishment in hell, but rather annihilation. There are believers who have begun to support the notion that hell is not a place at all but rather a ceasing to exist altogether. They quote verses such as Matthew 10:28, “…but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” They claim that this destruction of the soul means that the soul will cease to exist, and they also argue that the word used for hell in this passage, gehenna, refers to a place outside Jerusalem where trash was burned, so the consuming fires of hell will destroy the soul. They also quote Mark 9:47-48 which describes hell as a place “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched,” viewing the worm also as a means of consumption and destruction. "Hell-fire" imagery, such as is used in Matthew 3:10,12; 7:19; John 15:6 also attempts to support the idea of annihilation. Such attempts to deny the existence of hell seem to me to be just another of Satan’s attempts to lull people away from a fear of eternal punishment and to lessen the urgency of the gospel (Acts 8:36; 22:16). If there is no eternal punishment, why not live however you please if the Christian life is too “difficult” for you? You can’t lose: if you’re good, you go to Heaven, and if you’re not, you won’t care anymore.

There are several scriptural errors in this doctrine, however. First of all, the Greek word for “destroy” in Matt. 10:28 is the same word that is translated “lost” in verse 6 of the same chapter. Bullinger's Analytical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament states that “(t)he fundamental thought is not annihilation, but ruin, loss…” The word "destroy" can also be used to signify the permanent change of shape for the worse. This does not, however, imply that something is annihilated. A car can be destroyed in an accident, but all of the materials that made up the car are still at the scene of the accident. The car may not be recoverable, but it does not cease to exist. The use of the hell-fire verses to support the idea of annihilation does not account for the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, where, in verse 24 the rich man begs for Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue because he is "in agony in this flame." Also, Matthew 13:42 says that the furnace of fire into which the tares will be thrown will be a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Also, in reference to Mk. 9:47-48, how much sense does it make for the worm and fire never to end if no one is there to suffer them?

Genesis 5:24 says "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." Psalm 37:35, 36 says "I have seen a violent, wicked man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found." "Was not" in Genesis and "was no more" in Psalms are the same Hebrew phrase. Hebrews 11:5 also states that Enoch did not see death. In many places when Christ refers to the punishment of the wicked He says that there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth," which brings forth the idea of pain, anguish, and suffering, not extinction (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28). Finally, in Revelation 20:10, we see that the beast and the false prophet, both men, will be cast along with the devil into the lake of fire and brimstone where “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” We also see in the next chapter a list of sinners whose “part will be in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (8). Bullinger says of the word death here, “not merely an occurrence, but a state, the state of man as condemned through sin.” This death being a state, we can reason that it is continuous, that men in such a state continue to exist.

Let us not be deceived. Hell is a real place where the wicked will be punished in the life to come. We should never let fear of punishment become our primary motivation for serving God, but we must be constantly aware of the urgency of the gospel and the punishment that awaits the wicked.