| HIGHLIGHTS OF DAWN | December 1996 |
The Truth About Hell
EARLY IN 1996, several news service reports issued an article which was carried in many newspapers across the USA. Among the headlines was: “Hell: Not Hot, But Not Nice.” This bulletin said, “A Church of England commission has rejected the idea of hell as a place of fire, pitchforks and screams of unending agony, describing it instead as annihilation for all who reject the love of God.
“‘Whether there be any who do so choose, only God knows’, said a report by the church’s Doctrine Commission, titled, ‘The Mystery of Salvation’.
“Rejecting the medieval vision of the underworld, the report said: ‘Christians have professed appalling theologies which made God into a sadistic monster and left searing psychological scars on many’.
“The report said, belief in everlasting punishment has steadily faded.
“‘There are many reasons for this change, but among them have been the moral protests from both within and without the Christian faith against a religion of fear, and a growing sense that the picture of a God who consigned millions to eternal torment was far removed from the revelation of God’s love in Christ’.
“Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely that the only end is total non-being.
“That is much like the definition of hell in the catechism of the US Episcopal Church: ‘eternal death in our rejection of God’.
“Both churches are part of the Anglican Communion, but go their own ways on doctrine for example, the Episcopal Church moved first to ordain women as priests.
“The catechism of the Roman Catholic Church says that ‘the chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God’. But it also holds that the damned ‘suffer the punishments of hell’, ‘eternal fire’.”
The Very Rev. Tom Wright, dean of Litchfield Cathedral, and a member of the Doctrine Commission, said its definition of hell was “not new.”
EARLY EPISCOPALIAN PROTESTS
As far back as 1958, some pastors of the Episcopal Church were already protesting against this teaching. A young Episcopalian minister, Charles Kinsolving, in Pasco, Washington, created a stir among Episcopalians when in a sermon he said: “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 at the time, 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 Episcopalian bishop in Spokane, WA, while “deploring the argument,” said that Kinsolving’s preaching has been “within the allowable latitude of the church.
The Episcopal Church in America is essentially the same 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.
ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE WORD ‘HELL’
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 translation—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 each 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, sidestepping the issue. 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.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE KING JAMES COMMITTEE
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 the translators 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 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 innocence 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 favor, which will ever give countenance to honest and Christian endeavors against bitter censures and uncharitable imputations.”
HELL OR GRAVE
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 reads 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.
HADES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
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 [which the apostles never saw nor heard of] 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 translators of the King James Version recognized this, and in Acts 2:27 used the word ‘hell’ to translate hades. In this verse, Peter quotes Psalm 16:10 pertaining to the death and resurrection of Jesus. 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 learned and the unlearned 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.
THE KEYS OF 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 has been raised against it, and that now the Church of England has rejected the traditional hell concept.
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, send for a free copy of the booklet: “The Truth About Hell,” Dawn Publications, 199 Railroad Avenue, East Rutherford, NJ 07073, or call 1-800-234-DAWN.