This week I’m continuing my little paper - “The False View of Hell”. My goal with this piece is to try and show to both our Christian and non-Christian visitors, that the typical, predominant view that good people go to “Heaven” and bad people (or people just not believing in Jesus - a.k.a. “becoming a Christian”) go the “Hell” when they die, is NOT what the Bible actually says. Such a belief can only be seen in the bible when the presuppositions of that idea are read into certain Bible passages. And even then, they come into direct conflict with other parts of Scripture that point to different “afterlife” views. However, if (as I mentioned in Part 1) one looks at Scripture as a whole and doesn’t read Plato’s dualistic concepts into the Hebrew texts, it can be seen that man doesn’t automatically continue to live on past death in the “good place” or the “bad place”. Let’s dig deeper into this here in Part 2!

The False View of Hell

by Ron Shockley

Part 2: Man was designed a mortal creature – not an immortal one

Scripture at the very beginning shows that man was made a mortal creature that had the possibility to achieve immortality, not one that was made immortal to automatically survive death in a different state of existence. Looking at the earliest records in Genesis we see God creating man out of the dust of the ground and breathing life into him to make him a “living soul” (Gen. 2:7) – not giving him an immortal soul to make him equal to God in the ability to have a perpetual continual existence. The importance of seeing the simple truth of this should not be over looked. I love what Greg Deuble says about this in his excellent book; “They Never Told Me This in Church” (pg. 279):

“As this is the very first Bible verse containing the word “soul” as applied to man, its importance cannot be overstated. Notice that it does not say that man has a soul. Also it does not say that God gave man a soul. Rather it says: Man is a soul. It is the unique combination of the body and the breath of life which makes man a “living soul.” Any notion that man is made up of body and soul is ruled out. God did not put something of His immortal Self into man so that man became divine. Man is not part of God, not divine by nature. He is a living creature because God put into his nostrils the breath of life; that is God animated him. Genesis 2:7 tells us that man came from the red soil of the earth. He is an earth-being, not a spirit-being from a distant star as Plato taught, nor a spark from the bottom of the pond as evolution teaches. His life force is direct from God, a sacred gift. Man is not a spirit being enjoying a human experience. Man is a human being on a spiritual journey.”

Proof of this can be seen just a chapter later in Genesis 3 where once Adam & Eve have sinned and are being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God directly says “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22). Then God stationed an angel with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen 3:24). This shows very clearly that man did not possess immortality since it was the “Tree of Life” that man needed to live forever (hence the need for a guard). This would all be nonsensical if it was just preventing a “body” from living forever. This important detail is further backed up later in 1 Timothy 6:16 where about God it says that He “alone possesses immortality…”. If language has any meaning, the term “alone” leaves out the possibility of all others naturally having it.

The penalty of sin is death not an immortal existence

If the penalty for disobeying God was to suffer an eternal condition of punishment, shouldn’t that have been clearly spelled out there in the very beginning in Genesis? Shouldn’t God have simply said that disobedience would lead to punishment that would go on and on for all eternity? But nothing of the sort is there. God simply told Adam and Eve to not do one thing (eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and that if they did they would “surely die”. And after they disobeyed and did that one thing, God plainly told them that they would “return to the ground, because out of it you were taken; For you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19). God only indicated that the penalty was the opposite of life – death. It was the serpent that spun the lie of “you surely shall not die” – sounding just like the never ending existence past our physical deaths that people have believed ever since that day.

Yet the Bible unambiguously says that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23) and that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” Eze 18:20). If eternal torture were true, wouldn’t the wages of sin be that? Why does it just say death? And more importantly, how can a soul be immortal in nature and yet die? And what about Jesus the Messiah? If he died for the sins of all mankind – if he took the penalty for our “wages of sin”, and that penalty of sin against God was eternal torment, then why is Jesus not still in hell being tormented for all eternity in our place? Of course simple logic should dictate that death is indeed the only required penalty for sin as Scripture says. And quite clearly Jesus certainly endured that punishment - though he didn’t deserve it being an innocent, sinless man.

Death brings about complete non-existence

The well-known saying goes that there are only two things certain in life - “Death and Taxes”. It is also certainly known that death is the polar opposite of life. Death is the complete and utter cessation of every quality of being alive. This is plainly evident from everything we encounter in the human experience and everything we have observed in the world around us. And the Bible tells us the exact same thing. Scripture never says that the dead go on living in some other unseen plain of existence. No, the simple truth is that death ends ALL we really are and all we ever were. For example, Job the Old Testament’s supreme, faithful sufferer laments over man’s extremely fleeting time of being alive in Chapter 14:

“Man, who is born of woman is short-lived and full of turmoil, Like a flower he comes forth and withers, He flees like a shadow and does not remain” (ver. 1-2).

Then in verses 10-12 Job says:

“But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he? As water evaporates from the sea, And a river becomes parched and dried up, So man lies down and does not rise, Until the heavens be no more, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.” (Job 14:1-2)

Later, King David (one of God’s most loved servants) in his Psalms describes death plainly in absolute, non-existent terms with verses such as:

• “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” (Ps. 6:5).
• “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?” (Ps. 30:9).
• “Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” (Ps. 88:10-12).
• “The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence” (Ps. 115:17). “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Ps. 146:4).

And one of the greatest thinkers of the Bible - King Solomon, wrote probably the most clear and straightforward truth regarding the condition of the dead in these three writings in Ecclesiastes:

• “For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.” (Eccl. 3:19-20)
• “But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun.” (Eccl. 9:4-6).
• “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.” (Eccl. 9:10).

The truth of these verses can not be side-stepped or wished away by those looking to hold-on to the traditional view that man is an immortal creature that instantly moves on to another plain of existence once he “passes away”. There is NO “passing on” or going anywhere but to become “worm food” in the grave. The “DEAD KNOW NOTHING”. We do not exist any more. The organic “earth” elements that God designed mankind out of, is exactly what we turn back into. When that “breath of life” - that God gave Adam and has been passed down generation to generation each time sperm fertilizes egg - leaves us at death, we are nothing but a rotting corpse that turns to goo and eventually in time becomes “dust”. The EXACT thing that God promised in Gen. 3:19!

But is that it? Is death really the end of us? Well fortunately that is not the absolute “end of the line” according to Scripture. Let’s go back to Job the famous sufferer in the same Chapter 14 and notice that Job asks the age-old question that mankind has always asked (and still asks) - “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14). Is there anything else past death? Well notice a VERY INTERESTING thing Job says next - “All the days of my struggle I will wait, until my change comes.” Waiting? A change?? What is he talking about?

We’ll cover that next in Part 3. But I’ll leave a hint with another OT verse from Daniel:

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)