Board index ‹ Heaven and Hell

[C Coles]

Is hell literal, or is it an idiom that the Jewish writers used when writing the scriptures 2000 yrs ago, and which the hearers to whom Jesus was speaking would have understood as idioms and which they themselves would have spoken?

Matt 5: 22; Hell fire ,, idiom for mental suffering: torment.
Matt 5:29 ;If thy right hand offend thee pluck it out. Idiom, if you have a habit of envying, stop it.
Matt 5: 30; cut your hand off, idiom, stop stealing.
Matt 16:6; Hell ( Sheol-- ). Idiom, a resting place for departed ones.
Matt 16:18; Gates of hell, idiom, Evil forces; opposition.
Matt 23:15; A child of hell, idiom, A corrupt person.
Luke 4:41; Devils came out of men,idiom, many insane men were restored,
James 3:6; tongue is a fire.. Idiom,Powerful,fluent. Possibly, speaking from the mental anguish,
Of wrong thinking, false teaching or unlearned thoughts. An untutored mind, in the things of peace, love and assurance, therefore the hell.

Contrast the ways of peace,
Isaiah 26:3 God will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You,because he trusts in You.

Narrowing the subject down to a few topics, hell, fire, mutilation,Devils, peace.

Mostly keeping to the OT, which includes most of the'Gospels' as Jesus was still under the old Mosaic law and system when he spoke to the Jewish nation.

[jimwalton]

The writers of the Bible certainly used lots of idioms, as did Jesus. A lot of them we know about and know how to interpret them, and some of them are still being both investigated and debated. The main word picture the Bible uses of hell is fire, but it's not the only one, so we have to be cautious about how we interpret the Bible. As I have already told you, I don’t think hell is literal fire, but that doesn’t mean hell isn’t literal.

The Bible uses five main pictures to speak of hell

1. Darkness (Mt. 8.12; Jude 13) and separation (Lk. 13.27-28; 2 Thes. 1.7-9)

2. Suffering and Remorse
- Weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8.12; 22.13; 25.30; Lk. 13.28)
- fire (Mt. 13.42, 50)
- cut to pieces (Mt. 24.51)

3. Punishment (Mt. 25.46; Rev. 14.11)

4. Fire (Jude 7; Luke 16.24)

5. Death and destruction (2 Thes. 1.7-9; Rev. 20.14)

Revelation 20.13-15. In v. 13, "Sea," "death," and "Hades" are three broad places thought to contain the dead. The emphasis is on the universality of judgment. No matter who you are, how you died, or what eternity holds for you, you will stand before Christ for judgment. That's the point of the text.

Rev. 20.14 and the Lake of Fire: Of all the commentaries I have, none of them think this is literal fire. Mounce says it's either stern punishment or full and final defeat. Robertson considers it to be the end of the threat of death. Jewish commentators and Jensen say it could be referring to annihilation and extinction. Keener regards it as an image of the torment of separation from God.

I am quite convinced that the Bible speaks of hell as a literal place of torment, though not necessarily fire. The torment comes from the agony of being separated from God.

Peace is also at times an idiom, a simile, or literal. It depends on the specific text.

Between Daniel, Jesus, Paul, and John the Revelator, hell is spoken of in idiomatic, literary, and literal terms. I believe it is as literal a place as the final destination for believers.