14th December, 2011

LLOYD HARKNESS

Hellfire and damnation. Hellfire and brimstone. Holy hell: just a touch of irony with that one. Hell’s bells. Hell.

Whatever we may think hell is and entails, the language and imagery applied to it has always been colourful.

A PLACE OF FIRE AND BRIMSTONE?:The imaagery for hell in the Old Testament grew out of an analogy of the Valley of Hinnom, says Lloyd Harkness. PICTURE: Nick Kaufman (www.sxc.hu) "Current notions of hell have been fashioned by a jumble of ideas relating to justice, sinfulness, forgiveness and love."

While the language may be colourful, for some time now many Australians have been dismissive of its existence. A 2009 Nielsen Poll found 68 per cent of Australians believe in God while only 38 per cent believe in hell.

Expressions such as ‘all my mates will be there’ are symptomatic of a broader view which has turned hell into an insipid, debunked, amorphous nothing which is not worthy of serious intellectual consideration.

Current notions of hell have been fashioned by a jumble of ideas relating to justice, sinfulness, forgiveness and love.

There has also been a reaction to the sins of the past, in respect to hell. Hell has been a tool in the hands of manipulators. The most serious offence of yesteryear was peddling the idea you could buy your loved ones release from hell with some money in the right hands of a church official.

Hellfire and brimstone preaching was also often manipulative by nature. Scaring people into God’s kingdom was not Jesus' style. The lost were drawn to Him by His compassion, love and wisdom.

And, as for motivation, well, love has always the greatest motivator. Love produces an ‘I want to’. Fear, on the other hand, can only generate an ‘I have to’ lest I suffer dire consequences.

So before the baby is completely tossed with the bath water, let’s return to what the Bible says about hell. (Should you read on you will see babies, or children, are an important consideration regarding hell.)

The imagery of hell in the Old Testament grew out of an analogy with the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. This lovely valley became a place of human sacrifice, perpetual burning, death and wailing.

The valley was emblematic of Israel’s apostasy at its worst. Molech and Baal, gods of fire, were worshiped here, and corrupt kings of the ilk of Ahaz sacrificed their children to appease them. Nothing could be more depraved than to take the life of your own child in this way and these practices became part of what it means to be in hell.

Can we visualise and empathise with the children who were burnt to death in this manner. Whipped into a religious frenzy that drowned out suffering, the celebrants’ amoral stench rose to God from a pit devoid of anything holy, good and loving.

Milton writing 350 years ago in his epic poem Paradise Lost penned it thus;

"...Molech, horrid king besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parent’s tears,
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire
To this grim idol."

King Josiah put an end to the frenzied idol sacrifices in the Valley of Hinnom. It reverted to being a garbage tip and sewer dump for Jerusalem. To minimise the filth it was regularly torched and brimstone was used to help it burn. Consequently, added to the smoke and stench of this tip, you had the caustic, sulphuric, villainous smell of brimstone.

Hinnom also became the place for tossing the bodies of criminals to then be consumed in a funereal pyre.

Combine these aspects and you have a picture of Hell, Hades or Sheol in Biblical imagery and the Jewish mind at Jesus’ first coming. Vernacular usage had turned The Valley of Hinnom, or Ge-Hinnom, into Ge-henna.

In Gehenna we have a place in Hebrew history representative of corruption, criminality, fire, brimstone, religious apostasy and abominable deeds perpetrated even against children. Gehenna is a place of death and worms feeding on carcasses and the tortured wailing of its victims.

Misery and suffering were synonymous with Gehenna for Christ and those who listened to His teaching.

Interestingly it is Jesus who speaks the most about Gehenna, not the ‘Sons of Thunder’ in James and John or even Paul. Jesus, whose whole message and purpose was to reveal the love of God and restore the lost to Him, has the most to say about hell.

When speaking on the topic of who would become the greatest in the kingdom of heaven Jesus challenged his listeners to become childlike in faith, lacking pretension and fully trusting their heavenly Father. To achieve this He said you need to remove whatever causes you to sin and to do this with urgency lest you be thrown into ‘eternal fire’ or ‘the lake of fire’.

This thought came through also when He encouraged His disciples to be bold in faith and not fear those who can kill the body but fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Then there are two parables which reinforce the reality of hell. In the story of sheep and goats it is those who fail to be hospitable and act on the behalf of the needy who are cursed to "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels". The goats receive eternal punishment and the sheep receive eternal life.

The second parable, that of the weeds, declares those who do evil will be as weeds thrown into "the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth".

Jesus’ most illuminating story on this subject is the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had ignored Lazarus, the beggar at his gate, in life. He had been a goat. Now in death there was a chasm between them. He is in Gehenna because of his selfish life while Lazarus is at Abraham’s side in New Jerusalem. There is no crossing over between these abodes.

The rich man is desperate his family not repeat his mistake and wants Lazarus to warn them. Abraham bluntly states they have had plenty of teaching on this matter from Moses on through the prophets so another messenger will not make any difference. Lazarus’ brothers just need to do what they know they are meant to do. Abraham’s closing comment starkly declares not even someone rising from the dead would change them.

Clearly Jesus reinforces the fact hell is not a place to be trifled with.

The future domain for the weeds, goats and Lazarus’ of this world is Sheol, Hades or Hell, the holding cell for unredeemed humanity. The book of Revelation makes it clear this holding cell exists until the court of God is opened when He sits on the Great White Throne, after the millennium, and pronounces judgement.

Revelation also speaks of a Lake of Fire which comes into effect with the Great White Throne judgement. This will be the place for Satan and demonic spirits, the Antichrist, the False Prophet and all who have spurned Jesus. Currently the Lake of Fire is empty and the first to be sentenced to it will be the Antichrist and the False Prophet.

So there is a Hell which exists now and a Lake of Fire which will come into existence.

Gehenna was outside Jerusalem in Old Testament times and in the future it remains outside the heavenly New Jerusalem. It is a place of filth, corruption, apostasy and death. It has the stench of greed, hatred, enmity, pride, self absorption and violence untempered by the cleansing love of God. Its voice is misery and torment.

Hell quite simply is the converse of life. It is ruin.

Jesus was certainly convinced we cannot afford to be flippant with or dismissive of its reality.

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