The idea of hell, where sinners burn through all eternity, balances on two pillars: the immortality of the soul and a vindictive God. Both doctrines are shaky, yet the majority of Christians believe in such a concept of hell, where an angry God keeps people alive for the sole purpose of torturing their souls without ceasing.
A closer look at these pillars foils the problem with this common belief.
We do not have immortal souls. Only God is immortal.
Nowhere does the Bible teach that people have an immortal soul. God, alone, is said to possess immortality: “…the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality…” (1 Timothy 6:15, 16).
There’s no talk of an innate immortal soul that survives death, accept in hyperbolic parables. Immortality is a gift, which is received not at death, but at Jesus’ Second Coming, when Christ returns to pay the wages. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). The Bible teaches us to strife for eternal life (1 Timothy 6:12), to hope for it (Titus 1:2), and to accept it as a promise (1 John 2:25) – a gift we are to receive, which we do not innately posses.
If immortality was inherent, we would not need to strife for it, hope for it, or receive it as a gift later at Christ’s return. It therefore makes sense that the wages of sin should be “death”, not eternal life in hell.
By means of Hebraic parallelism the Bible frequently equates hell with death, for example:
“The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.”
“Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell…”
“The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me…”
“Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.”
“Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.”
“But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.”
“Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement…”
(Psalm 18:5; Psalm 55:15; Psalm 116:3; Proverbs 5:5; Proverbs 7:27; Proverbs 9:18; Isaiah 28:15.)
Hell is not eternal life while tortured, but eternal death. The final end for the unsaved is complete annihilation, called the second death: “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Revelation 20:14).
Even Jesus said that hell is not a torture chamber where souls are kept alive, but a place where “both soul and body” are destroyed (Matthew 10:28): “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
The dead are not conscious in some other dimension, either heaven or hell. “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence” (Psalm 115:17); “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing…” Ecclesiastes 9:5).
The followers of God that already passed away (also known as the “dead in Christ”) will one day be raised from the dead to receive the gift of eternal life. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52).
God is not vindictive.
The second pillar is the idea that God is a vindictive, arbitrary deity that believes it is just to torture people for thousands upon thousands of years, even though they only sinned for a short lifetime. And this counts for both the adult that sinned for seventy years, as for the child that sinned for ten years. Clearly this does not make sense!
No, Jesus came to show us that God is not vindictive and arbitrary. He said: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). At the cross, Jesus was spat upon and cursed, tortured and beaten, yet he forgave his aggressors. This is also the character of the Father who forgives our sins for His name’s sake (1 John 2:12).
God does not now, nor will He in the future, keep souls alive in hell in order to torture them. That is a sick doctrine that brings shame to a loving God.
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