Who’s Burning
in Hell Right Now?
King Saul, the first
king of Israel, was 61 years old when
he died during the Philistine attack
at Shunem about 1011 B.C. Many people
believe that Saul and others on the
battlefield that day went directly to
hell when they died because they
consistently refused to obey the
Lord. (1 Samuel 28-31). According to
this theory, King Saul is still
writhing and jumping about in the
eternal flames of hell fire 3,000
years later.
Saul’s misery
must be beyond expression. He cannot
get water, food or any comfort. The
only thing worse than the heat knows
that his torment, as far as eternity
goes, has just begun! He is tormented
and discouraged beyond words because
there is no second chance – no
way out of hell. The roar of
hell’s furnace drowns his plea
for relief. The saints playing harps
in Heaven, on the other side of the
abyss, do not pay attention. Saul
cries, begs and sobs at the thought
of suffering years without end.
Think about it, if
there is a burning hell where sinners
writhe in eternal torment, it must be
an awful place! There is no way out,
no hope, no end. Every time the devil
turns up the thermostat, the hostages
of hell curse God and demand release
from their misery. Many Christians
believe this scenario about King Saul
is literally true and use the story
of the rich man and Lazarus to prove
it. (Luke 16: 19-31) A few years ago,
George Gallup surveyed American
Christians regarding their views on
Heaven and Hell. Almost 87% of the
individuals surveyed believed they
were going to Heaven and 91% said
they knew someone in hell or someone
who was going there. Therefore,
Christians commonly accept the
reality of Heaven and hell. The
Gallup poll pointed out one
fascinating piece of information.
Most Christians believe that God
would actually torment people with
hell fire forever and ever!
Nobody is Burning in
Hell Yet
Is there a burning
hell right now? The weight of the
evidence in the Bible says no –
not yet. Here is why:
- Jesus paid the
penalty for sin. If the
penalty for sin is burning in
hell for millions of years,
then we can only surmise
based on this reasoning, that
Jesus failed and did not stay
in hell long enough. Why
would God require human
beings to pay a higher price
for sin that He required our
Sin Bearer pay?
- God is fair.
He will not torture people
forever and ever because they
lived in sin for just a few
years. In human terms, a
justice system is considered
fair if it stands firmly on
this principle: Punishment
should be commensurate with
the crime that was committed.
Does God do less? Should King
Saul be tormented for three
millenniums and then
throughout eternity when he
lived a mere 61 years?Should
anyone be tortured forever
and ever?
- God is love
and Heaven will be a
wonderful place to live.
However, if we must witness
loved ones agonizing in the
flames of hell and not to be
able to do anything about it,
how content and at peace will
we be? (One person responded
to this question by saying to
me, “It all depends on
who it is.”)
- The Bible
teaches there will be two
resurrections. (Revelation
20:4,5) The first
resurrection is for the
righteous and it will occur
at the Second Coming. The
second resurrection will
occur at the end of the
millennium and is for the
wicked. Why would God
resurrect the wicked dead
(who are already burning in
hell) only to put them back
into an earthy body and
torture them some more?
- Finally, if
hell exists, where is it?
Things Still Do Not
Add Up
Most Christians also
believe that good people go
immediately to Heaven when they die.
The following four reasons indicate
this is not a possibility:
1. The Bible teaches
there is a resurrection of the
righteous. If the righteouses go
immediately to Heaven when they die,
why does the Bible say there is a
last day resurrection? (Actually,
there are two resurrections.) Some
people suggest the first resurrection
for the spirit of the righteous dead
to reclaim their Earthy body.
However, if the human spirit is a
living entity outside the body, why
is a body even necessary? If Abel has
been in Heaven for almost 6,000
years, why would he want the body he
had so long ago? Think about the
individuals who had physical
deformities while they were alive.
Would their spirit want to return and
live in a deformed body again for a
moment? Furthermore, if a body
returns to dust after death (Psalms
104:29; Ecclesiastes 3:20), why would
Jesus wait until the Second Coming to
gather some dust to together to
reform the old body? He would
certainly create a new body any time
He wants. Interestingly, the Bible
says the saints will not have the
same body in Heaven as they had on
Earth anyway. (1 Corinthians 15:50)
2. The Bible teaches
there is a final judgment. If we go
to Heaven or hell at death, this
would mean that a person’s final
judgment is at death, for God would
have to decide our destiny at that
moment. However, this is contrary to
the Biblical concept of a judgment
that occurs at an appointed time.
(Acts 17:31) Consequently, Abel, the
first man to die, was not sent to his
eternal destination at his death, for
the time that he would be judged
would not occur for thousands of
years.
3. The Bible teaches
that the dead know nothing.
(Ecclesiastes 9:5) God knows the
devil uses curiosity about death to
trap people who believe his
sophisticated lies. (John 8:44)
Therefore, God expressly forbids us
from trying to communicate with those
who have died. God said, “Let
no one be found among you who
sacrifices his son or daughter in the
fire, who practices divination or
sorcery, interprets omens, engages in
witchcraft, or cast spells, or who is
a medium or spiritist or who consults
the dead.” (Deuteronomy
18:10,11)
4. The Bible teaches
that one day God will put an end to
sin. Living in Heaven or hell for
eternity requires immortality.
Immortality is only granted to the
righteous at the Second Coming. (See
1 Corinthians 15:51-53.) The wicked
never receive immortality. In fact,
the Bible clearly says, “the
souls who sins is the one who will
die.” (Ezekiel 18:4) Think
about it. If wicked people were
granted immortal souls or spirits,
the blight of sin and sinners would
last for eternity!
Conditional Mortality
When God created Adam
and Eve, He gave them access to the
fruit from the tree of life that
would keep them alive indefinitely.
When they sinned, God separated them
from the tree of life so they would
eventually die. “And the Lord
God said, ‘The man has now
become like one of us, knowing good
from evil. He must not be allowed to
reach out his hand and take also from
the tree of life and eat, and live
forever.’ So the Lord God
banished him from the Garden of Eden
to work the ground from which he had
been taken. After he drove the man
out, he placed on the east side of
the Garden of Eden cherubim and a
flaming sword flashing back and forth
to guard the way to the tree of
life.” (Genesis 3:22-24)
The Promise of Death
God warned Adam
saying, “…You are free
to eat from any tree in the garden;
but you must not eat from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, for when
you eat it you will surely die.”
(Genesis 2: 16,17) Did God mean
by this statement that the body would
die, but the soul would live forever?
That is what the devil wanted Eve to
believe. Satan said to Eve, “You
will not surely die.”
(Genesis 3:4) Satan led Eve to
believe that she was immortal like
God, and therefore, not subject to
death! What a mean trick!
Man is Mortal
God did not take an
everlasting soul and place it within
Adam’s body at creation.
Instead, Adam became a living soul
when God created him. “The
Lord formed the man from the dust of
the ground and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, and the
man became a living being.”
(Genesis 2:7) In other words, God
united Adam’s body with His own
breath of life and Adam became a
living human being. When Adam’s
body lost the breath of life, Adam
ceased to exist. Man is mortal which
means man is subject to death. God is
immortal which means He is not
subject to death. Notice what God
said about man’s mortality at
the time of the flood, “Then
the Lord said, My Spirit will not
contend with man forever, for he is
mortal; his (remaining) days will be
a hundred and twenty years.”
(Genesis 6:3) The Bible makes it
clear that God alone is immortal. “Now
to the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only God, be honor and
glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1
Timothy 1:17) Paul’s further
explains that God will grant the gift
of immortality to the saints at the
Second Coming! “When the
perishable has been clothed with the
imperishable, and the mortal with
immortality, then the saying that is
written will come true: ‘Death
has been swallowed up in
victory.’” (1
Corinthians 15:54)
Without the
Resurrections – We Are Dead
Every dead person will
be resurrected – eventually.
Here is a brief scenario. At
Jesus’, Second coming, several
things happen. The righteous dead are
resurrected and called to meet Jesus
in the air (First resurrection).
Righteous people who are alive also
join the people who are resurrected
to meet the Lord in the air. The
brilliant glory of Jesus slays the
wicked people on the earth who are
still alive at the time of His
coming. (The devil will have no one
to deceive during the millennium for
the earth is desolate.) Jesus,
accompanied by the saints, returns to
Heaven for 1,000 years. In Heaven,
the redeemed saints review the
results of God’s judgment to
satisfy themselves that God’s
decision is fair for each person. At
the end of the 1,000 years, the Holy
City descends to Earth with the
saints inside. At this time, the
wicked people from all ages are
resurrected (second resurrection) to
see the reality of God. Think about
it – every person who has ever
lived on this Earth will witness the
final revelation of Jesus. Satan
stirs the vast multitude of wicked
people to attack the City of God
(Revelation 20:7-8), but Jesus
suspends the final act of rebellion
so that He can explain the plan of
salvation and reveal why each person
was not saved. After this revelation,
every wicked person will bow before
God admitting that God is love and He
performed his judgment fairly.
(Isaiah 45: 23,24; Romans 14:11,12;
Philippians 12:10) The wicked people,
overcome by their sense of loss, then
turn upon each other in hopeless rage
and God, in mercy, ends the carnage
with fire from Heaven. (Revelation
20:9)
Difficult Texts
Most Christians do not
understand the resurrections because
they do not understand man’s
condition in death. More than 50
times in the New Testament, death is
called sleep – for that is
exactly what it is like. (See John
11:11-14.) Death after life is
exactly the same condition as death
before life. There is no knowledge or
intelligent thought process before
life and there is no intelligent
thought process after life. Death is
a state of silence or nonexistence.
Many Christians
disagree with this view on death.
They offer many texts to demonstrate
the immortality of man’s soul or
spirit, an eternally burning hell,
and the concept that the righteous
dead are now in a state of blissful
existence in Heaven. Let us look at
several of these texts and see what
is actually written:
Spirit Returns to God
“And the
dust returns to the ground it came
from, and the (ruach) spirit returns
to God who gave it.”
(Ecclesiastes 12:7) Some people use
this text to prove that the spirit
returns to God at the time of death.
They believe this text proves there
is a consciousness when the body and
soul are separated and that the
spirit (Hebrew word:
“ruach”) returns to God who
gave it. The Hebrew word
“ruach” means wind or
breath. Notice how this same word is
translated a few verses earlier:
“As you do not know the path of
the (ruach) wind, or how the body is
formed in a mother’s womb, so
you cannot understand the work of
God, the Maker of all things.”
(Ecclesiastes 11:5)
The definition of
“ruach” is simply wind,
spirit or breath and this text says
that “ruach” returns to
God. Ecclesiastes 12:7 are true for
both the righteous dead and the
wicked dead! Since the breath of life
was given to both groups of people,
the breath of life returns to God who
gave it when we die, regardless of
our behavior!
Job’s use of the
word “ruach” may help
clarify its meaning. He says, “As
long as I have life within me, the
(ruach) breath of God in my nostrils,
my lips will not speak deceit.” (Job
27:3,4 KJV) An unrefined translation
of Job’s comment might read,
“As long as I have life in me
and the breath from God in my nose,
my lips will not speak lies.”
Neither Solomon nor Job used the word
“ruach” to mean a conscious
spirit roaming the Heavens.
King David also knew
that death brought an end to
consciousness. He said, “Do
not put your trust in princes, in
mortal men, who cannot save. When
their (nephesh) spirit departs, they
return to the ground; on that very
day their plans come to
nothing.” (Psalms 146:3,4)
The word “nephesh” means
breath. This word is used many times
in the Bible to describe the breath
in living creatures. Notice: “And
the Lord God formed man from the dust
of the ground and breathed into his
nostrils (nephesh) breath of life,
and man became a living being.” (Genesis
2:7) “Everything on dry land
that had the (nephesh) breath of life
in its nostrils died.” (Genesis
7:22)
David knew that the
dead were in the grave and not in
Heaven praising the Lord. He said,
“It is not the dead who
praise the Lord, those who go down to
silence; it is we (the living) who
extol the Lord…” (Psalm
115:17,18) The Apostle Peter also
knew that the dead were not in
Heaven. On the day of Pentecost he
spoke about King David saying, “Brothers,
I tell you confidently that the
patriarch David died and was buried,
and his tomb is here to this
day…For David did not ascend to
heaven…” (Acts 2:29,34)
Solomon also leaves no
room for doubt regarding this topic.
He explains the state of the dead
very clearly. He says that the dead
are unaware of anything taking place
on Earth. He wrote, “For the
living know that they will die, but
the dead know nothing; they have no
further reward, and even their memory
of them is forgotten. Their love,
their hate and their jealousy have
long since vanished; never again will
they have any part in anything that
happens under the sun.”
(Ecclesiastes 9:5,6)
