| Highlights of Dawn | March 1958 |
Hell Controversy in Church
AS REPORTED in a recent issue of Time, “Hell broke loose in Pasco, Washington, spread through the Episcopal District of Spokane, and gave the bishop something to worry about.” It seems that a young Episcopal minister, Charles Lester Kinsolving, pastor of the Pasco congregation, has long believed that the doctrine of eternal torture dishonors God, and has done more harm in the world than good. He is quoted as saying in a sermon:
“Hell is a damnable doctrine—responsible for a large measure of this world’s hatred. According to this doctrine, God, who commands us to love our enemies, plays the hypocrite by damning his enemies. This in turn stimulates the hatred of God by people who abhor hypocrisy—and it gives sanction to our hatred of certain selected enemies.”
This, of course, was contrary to the official doctrinal position of the Episcopal Church, so another pastor of the same denomination announced that he was in “complete disagreement.” The pulpit, said this pastor. should not be used to express personal views which are contrary to the teachings of the church. On the other hand, the bishop in Spokane, while “deploring the argument” said that Kinsolving’s preaching had been “within the allowable latitude of the church.”
To us it is surprising that a bishop of the Episcopal Church, caught in the middle of a controversy over such an important doctrine of the church, should be so noncommittal as merely to deplore the argument. This, it seems to us, would have been an excellent opportunity either to defend the doctrine of eternal torture, proving it, if he could, by the Bible, or else to agree with the young pastor who said that it was a “damnable doctrine,” and so deplore the fact that it continued to remain one of the teachings of the Episcopal Church.
The Episcopal Church in America is essentially the same in organization and belief as the Church of England in Great Britain. The Church of England is, in reality, the State Church of Great Britain, although its association with the state does not hold the same implication as church-state union once did. The Premier, Cabinet members, and House of Commons are the real governing factors of Great Britain, while royalty and the church occupy the sidelines.
But it was different in the past. It was different when King James ordered the assembly of a committee of scholars to produce a translation of the Bible which could be the official version for the use of the Church of England. This is the King James Version, and even when the scholars of the church made this translation they seemed to have difficulty over the subject of hell, as evidenced in the lack of uniformity in translating, for example, the Hebrew word sheol, the word in the Old Testament which applies to the state, or condition, of the dead.
More than three hundred years ago, when the King James Version was first published, the original meaning of the English word hell; namely, hidden, or covered, would be better known by the English-speaking public than it is today. Perhaps this is one reason the translators felt justified in using it thirty-one times to translate the Hebrew word sheol, while using the word “grave” an equal number of times in translating the same word, and “pit” three times. They reasoned, perhaps, that the reader would understand the text in which the word “hell” appeared in keeping with his own conception of the word.
But this was, in reality, side-stepping the issue, just as the Spokane bishop has now done by “deploring the argument” while failing to tell the people the truth about hell. And the truth concerning hell could have been told so clearly by the King James translating committee, simply by being consistent in their translation of the Hebrew word in the Old Testament, and the Greek word hades in the New Testament.
Considering that then the traditions of the Dark Ages were still a powerful influence in the thinking of even the learned, probably we should admire them for what they did accomplish, rather than condemn them for not coming out more definitely for the truth. Their honesty of purpose is revealed in their message to King James upon the completion of their translation, from which we quote:
“If, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish Persons at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us, because we are poor his instruments to make God’s holy truth to be yet more and more known unto the people, whom they desire still to keep in ignorance and darkness; or if, on the other side, we shall be maligned by self-conceited brethren, who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil; we may rest secure, supported within by the truth and innocency of a good conscience, having walked the ways of simplicity and integrity, as before the Lord; and sustained from without by the powerful protection of your Majesty’s grace and favour, which will ever give countenance to honest and Christian endeavors against bitter censures and uncharitable imputations.”
Surely we have to accept this testimony of the translators themselves as to their honesty of purpose, but this does not explain why, in their translation, they almost always used the word hell to translate the Hebrew word sheol when the reference was to the wicked, and grave when the text pertained to the righteous.
And how simple it would have been to use the word hell instead of grave in Ecclesiastes 9:10; and how truth-revealing it would have been concerning the doctrine of hell. We quote the text with this translation: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in hell [sheol] whither thou goest.” From this text alone, the English-speaking Christian who read the King James translation would have known that hell is not a place of torture, but a state of unconsciousness.
Genesis 37:35 is another revealing use of the Hebrew word sheol, or would have been had the King James translators used the word hell to translate sheol as they did in thirty-one other texts. In this text Jacob, a faithful servant of God, weeping for Joseph, said, “I will go down into hell unto my son mourning.” From this text, had sheol been translated hell instead of grave, the Christian world would have learned that the righteous as well as the wicked go to hell when they die.
The word sheol appears again in Job 14:13. In this text we find Job asking God to let him die. Translating sheol by the word hell, this is what Job said: “O that thou wouldest hide me in hell, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!” The old English word hell, or helle, meant to be covered, or concealed, and how appropriate it would have been to use it in Job’s prayer, a prayer in which he asked to be hidden, and to be kept in secret.
There seems little excuse for the translators not using the word hell in this prayer of Job’s, yet, had they done so, the Bible would be saying that when a person dies he escapes God’s wrath, instead of having divine wrath poured out upon him in all its Dark-Age fury. Yes, the translators did have a problem, but if they had been consistent in their translation of sheol, possibly the Bishop of Spokane would have no occasion now to “deplore the argument” over hell among the pastors in his district.
It is not that the King James translators were compelled always to use the word grave as a translation of sheol unless the reference was to the wicked, for in Psalm 16:10 they departed from this pattern and used the word hell when they must have known that the text applied to Jesus. “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,” the text prophetically says of Jesus. In keeping with this text, and this translation, the Apostles’ Creed [of which the apostles never saw nor heard] states that Jesus descended into hell. Surely, if the Holy One, Jesus, went to hell when he died, the translators should have had no hesitancy in using the word hell in texts referring to the death of other righteous persons.
It is obvious, of course, why they used the word hell in the case of Jesus. If they had used the word grave, the text would have said that Jesus’ soul went into the grave, and this the translators did not believe. Since they wanted the reader of their translations to believe that hell was a place in which souls are alive, and the wicked ones tortured, it was thought better to put Jesus’ soul there rather than to have it die, as the Bible really teaches. Isaiah wrote of Jesus that “he … poured out his soul unto death.”—Isa. 53:12
The Greek word hades in the New Testament is the one which corresponds with sheol in the Old Testament. The King James translators recognized this, and in Acts 2:27 used the word hell to translate hades, in Peter’s quotation of Psalm 16:10 pertaining to the death and resurrection of Jesus. And how clearly and beautifully this reveals the divine plan for the salvation of fallen man from sin’s penalty, which is death!
“The wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23) Had the King James translators grasped the reality of this simple statement of divine truth, and in keeping with it, maintained uniformity in their translations of sheol and hades, how much easier it would have been for both the unlearned and the learned to grasp the truth of the divine plan!
Sheol, hades, hell, all describe the state of the dead. In the English language “grave” more properly describes the burial place, the excavation in the earth where the earthly remains of the dead are interred. In the Hebrew language the word qburah, or qeber, is the one most nearly corresponding to the English word grave. Since death is the penalty for sin, and Jesus took upon himself that penalty, it is logical that the Scriptures should speak of him as being in sheol, or hades, the Bible hell.
Because Jesus did take the sinner’s place in the Bible hell, he now has the “keys” of hell; that is, the authority and power to unlock this great prison-house and set death’s captives free. Jesus himself testified, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”—Rev. 1:18
In Revelation 20:13 we read, “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.” Here the marginal translation gives us the word “grave” instead of hell, although it is a translation of the Greek word hades. The effort in this, apparently, is to conceal the fact that the Bible hell will give up its dead, for this would be contrary to the tradition of the Dark Ages. According to this tradition, those who go to hell must remain there forever, and even worse than that, suffer excruciating torment throughout the endless ages of eternity.
How thankful we are to have learned that there is no place of eternal torture, and that the hell of the Bible will release its prisoners, because Jesus, having the “keys” of hell, will unlock its gates and set its captives free. This, of course, is just another way in which the Bible teaches the glorious doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead is the only hope of life beyond the grave that is held out to us in the Word of God. And it is a glorious hope!
We quite agree with Pastor Kinsolving’s appraisal of the doctrine of eternal torture. It is, as he said, a God-dishonoring teaching which, through the centuries since it was foisted upon the professed Christian church, has done much harm. Indeed, as one writer described it, it is a “God-dishonoring, love-extinguishing, truth-beclouding, saint-hindering, sinner-hardening, damnable heresy.” We are glad that here and there an occasional ministerial voice in the great churches of the land is being raised against it.
It would be much better, of course, if these learned gentlemen would give the public the benefit of their higher education and explain the manner in which the Bible has been mistranslated and misinterpreted in order to support this terrible doctrine. Just to say that they do not believe it does not go to the root of the matter, but how much the educated clergy could do, if they would, to enlighten the general public concerning the truth on this subject.
Perhaps this is too much to expect now. We do rejoice in the fact, however, that the time is coming, and soon, when the true knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth. Then the people will know that God truly is love.*
* NOTE: For complete information on the subject of hell, see the booklet, “The Truth About Hell.”