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

Can Anyone Escape From Hell?

Even in the ancient world, men wondered if anyone could return from the place of the dead. Job asked, "If a man die, shall he live again?" (Job 14:14). Both Job and Hezekiah described Hell as having "bars" or "gates" (Job 17:16; Isa. 38:10). (Jesus, too, mentioned the "gates" of Hell (Mt. 16:18), but only as a symbol of the most extreme, though futile, opposition to God's Word.) Job knew that, apart from a mighty work of God, existence in Hell was a permanent condition, for he said in 7:9, "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more." Ethan, one of King David's song leaders from the tribes of Levi, sang (Ps. 89:48), "What man is he that lives and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of Sheol?" The expected answer was "no".

In Ecclesiastes 3:14, Solomon said that whatever God does is eternal and that no man can alter His work. He said, "I know that whatever God does shall be forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. And God has done it so that men should fear before Him." That being true, and since sending men into Hell is one of the things God does, we know that man can neither alter nor undo it. The wisest thing that a man can do in response to what God does is to fear what God will choose to do with him, for whatever God chooses to do with any one of us will be forever.

Still, the ancient righteous hoped in God. Job, for example, knew that God would never forsake those who trust Him. He said, "I know that my Redeemer lives and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:25-27). Job obviously believed that just as God has power to send men into Hell, so He has power to deliver men from it and enough love for the righteous to do so. Much later, through Hosea (13:14), God actually did promise to ransom some people from Hell, but long before that, Job already had faith that it was possible to be ransomed from the dead, for he once prayed (Job 14:13), "O that you would hide me away in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!"

Jesus' Escape

Paul testified of Jesus' rescue from Hell when he wrote that before Jesus ascended into Heaven and carried captivity captive, he "descended first into the lower parts of the earth" (Eph. 4:9), after spending three days there (1Cor. 15:4), just as Jesus had predicted (Mt. 12:40). But Jesus escaped Hell because he trusted God to deliver him. Through David, Christ confessed to the Father, "You will not leave my soul in Sheol!"(Ps. 16:10). And in Psalm 49:15, he confidently declared, "God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me." Again, in Psalm 86:13, the Son prophetically rejoices in triumph: "Great is your mercy toward me! You have delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol."

On other occasions, such as Psalm 69:15, we hear the Son of God crying out to the Father, somewhat as he cried in the Garden of Gethsemene: "Let not the Pit shut her mouth on me!" In Psalm 142:7, he offered another of his many humble prayers: "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise your name. The righteous shall compass me about, for you will deal bountifully with me." And from Psalm 71:20-21, we are given, long before the words were actually spoken, this humble prayer of the Savior, perhaps offered to God from the heart of the earth during the three days he was there: "You, who have shown me great and sore troubles, shall bring me to life again from the depths of the earth. You will increase my greatness and comfort me on every side." This prayer was fully answered forty days after Jesus was resurrected, when he was taken up into heaven to return to the Father who had sent him from glory to earth, down into Hell, and then back up to earth again.

Let's Pause A Minute To Honor God

It is only right that we study these enlightening biblical passages, to search them out diligently and weigh their meaning; at the same time, we must avoid the pitfall of pride, lest our study become merely an academic exercise. It is easy to dig past the treasure if we become impressed with our ability to dig. Many a celebrated scholar has prided himself on the huge pile of excavated earth on his shelves and in his head, instead of simply being awed and humbled by the love of God, expressed in the painful labor and ultimate glory of Jesus.

We are loved by God! That glorious truth canopies everything the Bible has to say, and those who know the Bible best ought to feel it most. Too often, however, that is not the case. Let's not fail to get the point as we learn new things about Hell, in particular, the fact that Jesus suffered and died to save us from that awful place.

The central point of our learning should always be to imitate the life of Christ Jesus because he is the point. He is "the way, the truth, and the life." When we truly understand life, we love Jesus and bow in awe at the terrible suffering he endured on earth to bring us eternal life. And we value as well the suffering of the Father in Heaven, who restrained Himself as His beloved Son was abused and murdered by wicked men. They both paid a price of incredible, innocent pain for our salvation. We have hope of eternal life because of the willingness of both the Son and the Father to suffer. We already mentioned these compelling words of the Father to His Son through Zechariah: "By the blood of your covenant, I have sent forth your prisoners out of the Pit, wherein is no water." But all to often, such scriptures remind us only of the suffering of the Son and not of the Father, who "bowed the heavens" (Ps. 18:9) to be close to His Son when his agony was at its greatest. So, we give praise and honor to both the Father and the Son for the pain they endured to bring about "so great a salvation."

Everyone Delivered

As to the question, "Can Anyone Escape From Hell?", the answer is found in a phrase from Jesus, "With men it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible." And we have seen that God did bring Jesus up out of Hell, and because of him, God also transferred Paradise and the righteous who were in it from Hell into His presence.

That answer notwithstanding, in order to answer the question completely, we must look even further in time and consider the final end of the wicked. According to John's Revelation, the final destination of those who are now in Hell will be a place far worse than Hell. Here is John's description of their dreadful, final judgment from God: "Death and Hell delivered up the dead that were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. And Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire . . . The fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the Second Death" (Rev. 20:13; 21:8. In the next chapter, we will learn more about the Lake of Fire.)

Incredible as it may seem, the Bible plainly teaches that the wicked dead will be removed from Hell at the end of the age. And so, we are forced by the Bible's testimony to conclude that every person who has ever been in Hell either will be, or has already been, delivered out of it. The ancient righteous who were in Hell have already been transferred out of it by Jesus. The wicked who are there now - both those who were left in Torment by Jesus when he transferred Paradise from Hell to Heaven and those who have been cast into Hell since that time - will also be "delivered" from Hell, so to speak. But when they are delivered out of Hell, they will be delivered into a much worse place: the Lake of Fire.

This last prophecy from the book of Revelation is an example of what God said He alone can do; that is to "declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done" (Isa. 46:10). He has been declaring the end "by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21), as evidenced by the very ancient suggestion from Job that Hell is only a place where the wicked are presently being preserved by God until the day of destruction (Job 21:28-32).

So then, the absurd-sounding but complete answer to the question, "Can Anyone Escape From Hell?", is that, in time, everyone in Hell will be delivered out of it.