Hell

Scriptural discussion of Hell What does the Bible reveal about Hell? A wonderful, thorough survey of all Scripture says about this place of the dead, dispelling myth and revealing the love and goodness of God towards men.
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What the Bible really says about HELL

Who Goes Down Into Hell?

First, we find in the Bible the obvious fact that people have to die in order to go to Hell. Living people do not go there. This has been the case from the very beginning, apparently, for God revealed through Ezekiel that people from ancient times were in Hell (26:20). This requirement of death in order to descend into Hell is shown in Revelation 6:8, where Hell is described as following death, not preceding it. It is not surprising to find David poetically describing dead men's bones, scattered around a grave, as lying at the mouth of Hell (Ps. 141:7). So, the biblical evidence leads us to conclude that no living person can enter into Hell by his own will, cunning, or power; God must first end a person's earthly life and then choose to send that soul into Hell. This biblical truth proves that Homer's story of the hero Odysseus briefly visiting Hell while he was still alive is not true; it is a myth.

That having been said, the only way to completely answer the question, "Who goes down into Hell?", is to divide the answer into two periods of time: the time before Jesus ascended into Heaven to offer himself to God for our sins, and afterwards.

Paradise and Torment

As strange as it may first sound, the Scriptures undeniably maintain that until the New Testament began in Acts 2:4, the righteous descended into Hell when they died. In Genesis 37:35, Jacob said, "I will go down into Sheol unto my son mourning." This shows that when Jacob thought his son Joseph was dead, Jacob assumed that (1) Joseph had gone down into Hell and (2) that he would join Joseph in Hell when he died. Later in Israel's history, the ailing King Hezekiah wept and cried out, "I shall go to the gates of Sheol" (Isa. 38:10). In 1Samuel 28:14-15, God brought the righteous prophet Samuel up out of Hell to rebuke the backslidden King Saul and to tell him that he would be killed the next day and then join him in Hell. Lastly, in Psalm 16:10, Christ spoke through David and declared that God would not leave his soul in Hell (cp. Ps. 18:5-19; Ps. 30:3). This indicates that although Jesus was sinless, he too went down into Hell when he died.4 Such verses make it convincingly clear that the righteous who lived before the time of Jesus went down into Hell at the moment of their death.

As for the wicked of that same period, Psalm 9:17 says bluntly, "The wicked shall be turned into Sheol and all the nations that forget God." David warned his children that immorality would take them into the depths of Hell (Pro. 5:3-5; 7:27; 9:18). And Job said, in Job 24:19, "Drought and heat consume the snow waters; so doth Sheol those who have sinned."

In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus told the story of two men: one, a destitute, righteous beggar, and the other, a wealthy, wicked man. After these two men died, they both found themselves in Hell. This story from Jesus confirms the Old Testament information concerning the destination of the righteous and the unrighteous after death; namely, they all went down into Hell when they died. But more than that, Jesus' story reveals that at that time, Hell was divided into at least two parts: Paradise, the place of comfort for the righteous dead, and Torment, the place of punishment for the wicked. Moreover, in his story Jesus also reveals that there, in the heart of the earth, the righteous and the wicked could see and talk to each other, although they were permanently separated by an uncrossable, wide gulf.

After Jesus Ascended

So, part of our question, "Who goes into Hell?" has been answered, for before the New Testament was instituted, all souls were taken into Hell when they died, both the righteous and the unrighteous. The righteous were carried by the angels (Lk. 16:22) into the Paradise portion of Hell, and the wicked were cast, also by God's angels (Mt. 13:41-42; 49-50), into the portion of Hell called Torment. However, what we find after Jesus instituted the New Testament is that at the moment of death, evildoers are still cast into Hell, but the upright are taken into the presence of the Lord.

In the ages before the New Testament, as the righteous were dying, they would say, "I am going to be with my fathers" (Gen. 15:15). No dying righteous person who lived before the New Testament ever said on his deathbed, "I am going to be with the Lord." It is only in the New Testament writings that we begin to read statements such as, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord" (2Cor. 5:8, paraphrased). This is a momentous change for New Testament saints. And this change concerning where saints go when they die indicates that at some point in salvation history, the Paradise portion of Hell was removed from underneath the earth and transferred to Heaven, "where Christ sits at the right hand of God." But when did that transfer take place?

It is only Jesus' ascension into heaven after his resurrection from the dead that satisfactorily explains why the Old Testament's description of Hell as a place inhabited by both righteous and unrighteous souls does not carry over into the New Testament. Jesus must have transferred Paradise into Heaven, and of course, along with it, he must have transferred the righteous who were there. This transfer of Paradise seems to be what Paul was alluding to when he said that when Jesus ascended on high, he "led captivity captive" (Eph. 4:8). Paul's words imply that before Jesus came, righteous men and women in Paradise, though "comforted" by God (Lk. 16:25), felt some sense of being in captivity. And that would explain why Abraham (and others like him in Hell) were so very happy to see the day of God's Messiah come (Jn. 8:56). Jesus said, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad."

This rejoicing on Abraham's part implies that Abraham sensed, at least, that part of Jesus' mission was to deliver him from the "prison" of having to look continually upon the agony of multitudes of damned people and to hear their useless cries for help, some of whom he would have known personally, including, no doubt, some of his own relatives. The New Testament is very clear in teaching that Jesus paid the price for the washing away of all sins (if the sinners repent), both those sins committed before he came to earth and those committed afterward. In Paul's discourse on the Jews' need of a Savior, though they had the Law, Paul said that Jesus' sacrifice brought about "remission of sins that are past" (Rom. 3:25), and the author of Hebrews declares that Jesus' death and sacrifice brought about "redemption of transgressions that were under the first testament" (9:15).

God certainly forgave transgressions under the Law, as well as transgressions committed before the Law was given, but the New Testament teaches us that every instance of mercy that God ever showed to repentant men before Jesus came was shown to them only on the condition of his coming.5 The New Testament reveals to us that everything depended on Jesus. Christ Jesus is Lord of all. He is the only means of salvation for all people, whether or not they lived on earth before he did. This is why Abraham and other righteous souls like him in Paradise rejoiced to see Jesus' day; they all must have understood that Jesus was the key to all their hopes for eternal life, even if they did not know exactly how Jesus would go about securing that hope. The gospel's claim is that if Jesus had not paid the price for man's guiltiness before God, then no one's sins would ever have been washed away, and that there has never been a sin blotted out of God's book unless it has been blotted out by the blood of the sinless Lamb of God.

Foretold

God's transfer of Paradise from the heart of the earth to Heaven was foretold by the prophets, even though, as with so many other prophecies about the coming Messiah, those wonderful prophecies were not understood, even by those who spoke them. Zechariah said, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you! He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. . . . As for you [this is the Father speaking to the Son], by the blood of your covenant, I have sent forth your prisoners out of the Pit wherein is no water" (9:9, 11). In Isaiah, too, we find the Father speaking to the Son: "I the Lord have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light to the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house" (42:6-7).

We also find the Son speaking through Isaiah of wonderful things the Father had promised him, "Listen, O isles, unto me! And hearken, you people, from afar! The Lord has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has He made mention of my name. And He has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand has He hid me and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver He has hid me. And He said to me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.

"And He said, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth." And then the Father: "Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers: kings shall see and arise; princes also shall worship because of the Lord who is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose you. Thus says the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you, and I will preserve you for a covenant of the people . . .that you may say to the prisoners, Go forth! and to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves" (excerpts, Isa. 49:1-9).

After Jesus was anointed with power and sent by God to "do good and heal all that were oppressed by the Devil", he returned to his hometown of Nazareth. There, on the Sabbath day, "he went into the synagogue and stood up to read, and there was handed to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" (Lk. 4:16-17; Isa. 61:1).

Everyone in Hell was a prisoner there, whether in Paradise or Torment, but because the righteous had a promise from God that they would be delivered, they were called "prisoners of hope" (Zech. 9:12). Those in Torment, being damned, had no hope.

God is merciful; He will set His prisoners free (Ps. 146:7; 69:33), but there is not a soul that has ever become a prisoner of Satan's delusive power whom he has willingly released (cp. Isa. 14:17). The release of Hell's prisoners by Jesus was an expression of the Father's love and care for the righteous and an indication of the vast difference between our heavenly Father's goodness and the Devil's cruelty to those under his power.

The Wicked Dead in the New Testament

Surprisingly, hardly a thing is said in the New Testament books about where the wicked go when they die, but we can make some deductions based on the Scriptures we have. We know that Hell still exists because John's Revelation speaks of Hell still in use at the end of the world. At that time, John said, "Death and Hell delivered up the dead that were in them." This one verse (Rev. 20:13) is the only explicit reference in the New Testament to people being in Hell after Jesus ascended into Heaven, but it shows conclusively that (1) people are in Hell now just as they were before the New Testament began and (2) they will be there until the end of this age. Furthermore, since the Bible thus states that Hell will exist until the end of this age, and since we know that Jesus took all the righteous out of Hell, it must be that the dead whom John saw in Hell in his Revelation were only the wicked dead, for they are the only ones Jesus left down there when he ascended.

So, the final answer to the question, "Who goes down into Hell?", is that, before Jesus ascended into Heaven to offer his atoning sacrifice to God, everyone went down into Hell when they died, either to Paradise or to Torment. However, since Jesus transferred Paradise into Heaven, only the wicked who die are cast into Hell.