16:19 ¶ There was a certain
rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously
every day: 20 And there was a certain
beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which
fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar
died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also
died, and was buried; 23 And in hell he
lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in
his bosom. 24 And he cried and said,
Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of
his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil
things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. 26 And beside all this, between us and you there
is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot;
neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. 27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father,
that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: 28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify
unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. 29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and
the prophets; let them hear them. 30 And
he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they
will repent. 31 And he said unto him, If
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though
one rose from the dead.
Jesus, continuing with
the sin of covetousness and greed the Pharisees were apparently known for,
describes the end destination for those who would depend on and worship their
wealth. It is a warning to those who would listen. In this passage it is clear
that Hell is a real place of suffering. Hell is spoken of as a place of fire
early on.
Deuteronomy 32:22 For a
fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with
her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
It is commonly
understood among conservative Christians that before Christ’s resurrection that
Hell, the place of suffering, was next to Paradise, the place of joy and peace.
Here, it is said that there was an unbridgeable gap between them. The Greeks,
who were represented as traders and mercenaries throughout the Ancient Near
East from the earliest times and even fought on the side of Nebuchadnezzar and
Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish as mentioned in Jeremiah 46:2, were often the hired men of Jeremiah 46:21. They
took many slaves as spoils of war including many Jews.
Joel 3:6 The children also
of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye
might remove them far from their border.
It is very possible
that Greek versions of Hades, their word for Hell, were formed by what they
heard from their Hebrew captives just as later Greek writers would say, during
the Christian era, that Greek mythical heroes were amalgamations of Bible characters.
For example, Hercules may be a combination of Samson and Jonah due to the
experiences he supposedly endured some have thought. Even Herodotus, the
ancient Greek historian who lived hundreds of years before Christ supposed that
the Greeks lifted their mythologies from Egypt. Archaeologists, linguists, and
mythographers have concluded that the Greeks got their mythologies from the
Ancient Near East, which the Bible confirms in part. The Greek view of Hades as a place that
contained not only suffering but a place of joy and rest confirms this view.
Hel, in Norse mythology,
is not a good point to start with as virtually all we know about the Norse gods
was written by Christian writers during the 13th century and beyond,
presumably from older sources but who can say for certain.
We have the Bible, given
by inspiration of God to its writers and copyists and translators which is
wisdom and understanding rather than word-for-word dictation as I have
explained and referenced previously from Job 32:8; 2Peter 3:15; and 2Timothy
3:16 with the original autographs not ranked as high as the words we have to
read. See Jeremiah 36:32. It is the doctrine of preservation from Psalm 12:6, 7
and Psalm 119:89 that works alongside of the doctrine of inspiration to give us
the Bible we have today.
Hell is in the heart of
the earth but Paradise, like the ark of God, has been removed to the New Jerusalem
after Christ preached to the spirits there.
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas
was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man
be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth.
Luke 23:43 And Jesus said
unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
1Peter 3:18 ¶ For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring
us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime
were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were
saved by water.
2Corinthians 12:4 How that
he was caught up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Revelation 2:7 He that hath
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the
paradise of God.
Revelation 11:19 And the
temple of God was opened in
heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and
thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
Here, in this passage,
just as the rich man wants to enforce the social status he enjoyed over Lazarus
during life in Hell, so Abraham foretells that the wicked will not be
influenced by Christ’s resurrection and even His preaching to them in their
deplorable and abhorrent state will not impact their evil-focused minds.
I want to address
another issue having to do with words in the Bible. In Hebrew the word Sheol is translated as either the grave
or Hell, based on the context. In the New Testament, the suffering of Hell can
be expressed by the Greek word Hades.
With a million words in English we can be very specific in our naming of things.
And yet, words like love and hate are often used with many different
definitions understood by the context as in, “I love my mother,” versus, “I
love pizza.” In Hebrew and Greek the meaning of a word, too, is dependent upon
the context. Do not be deluded by skeptics who criticize the word Hell from Sheol or Hades. It would
make no sense for God to start a fire in the lowest grave as per the verse
quoted above from Deuteronomy or to mix Hades,
where torment or joy could be experienced, with Hell, a place of only torment until the final Lake of Fire consumes
those who have rejected God’s mercy. The words those people had were used to
describe things God put on their minds.
A similar mistake is
made by modernists who take compound words like Theopneustos in 2Timothy 3:16 and transliterate it as God-breathed rather than the correct given by inspiration which I’ve defined
previously. Compound words mean more than their component parts run together.
You would say you were going home to watch football on your television, not
your far-off seeing, now wouldn’t
you?
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