Category: Hell

Your Eternal Self

The post explores the concept of eternity through a theological lens, comparing God to a geometric line that exists infinitely. It discusses the nature of the spirit and body, eternal life, and the implications of sin on existence. It emphasizes God’s desire to recreate believers in a form suited for eternal life.

It is admittedly hard to conceptualize what “eternal” means. We can think of a long time, but not eternal. I sometimes use a math concept to get people to understand what they are. It helps.

God is like a line in geometry. I line goes infinitely in both directions. When Moses encountered God in the burning bush, he asked for God’s name:

14 God said to Moses, “Yahweh” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘Yahweh has sent me to you.’”

Exodus 3:14

Yahweh is a verb form of “to be” not found in English. God always was, is, and always will be, is what is means. He is the whole line. People who don’t believe in eternal life think we are a segment. A clear beginning and a clear end in death. God has made us to be a ray. We do have a beginning at our conception. We do not pre-exist this except that God knows us. But we will have no end.

Our bodies clearly have an end. The body you have is a segment. You may feel the terminal point creeping up on you right now. We are more complicated than just a body. We are for now this body, our spirit, and the interface between the two, our soul.

Having a spirit is clearly a part of being created in the image of God. It is not cognition, intelligence, emotion, or imagination. It is something not properly a part of this universe. Our spirit is coupled with this body through a mechanism that has not been revealed to us. It is probably something on a very small scale, perhaps the micro-tubules found on our neurons.

What faculties are resident in our spirit? I’m not sure. It does become hard to sort. Things like memory, reason, consciousness, even senses can all be associated with parts of the brain which belongs to the body, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are resident there. They may just interact with the body there. People having a Near Death Experience (NDE) can have all of the above without use of the body.

One thing I can say with certainty is a part of body and not the spirit is our sinful nature. The genetic damage we have all inherited that builds our body to be unreceptive to God and inclined to sin is cooked into the flesh. That is why we need to physically die. We need to get rid of this body when it is time.

Can our spirit simply float around without a body for long? Paul suggests that this wouldn’t be desirable:

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:1-4 (ESV)

Being “unclothed” in verse 4 is being a spirit without a body. You really don’t want that. You want to be “further clothed”: to get rid of your current body/tent and upgrade to a body built for Heaven (v.1). I would assume that our spirit will interface with that body either through a similar means or something completely different.

Don’t think that you are done. God is very determined not to lose in the struggle for this time-space continuum. While your body for here is damaged and will die, He wants to remake this universe and remake a body for you for this universe.

How would that work? Now we are pushing a bit into a mystery. We don’t know how that will work. At the time of Judgment Day, Christ’s visible return, and the making of a New Heaven and Earth, there will a resurrection of the dead. Will God recycle what remains of earthly bodies? Not sure. I doubt it. He will make something that is uniquely us. Do we still have the “(body) eternal in the Heavens?” I would assume from the word “eternal” used in 1 Corinthians 5:1 that the answer is “yes”. I will be a spirit connected to a body or bodies at that time and forever.

Can I mess this up? Until we get rid of our sin-damaged body the answer is “yes”. We are saved completely by God’s action. Jesus kept the Law. Jesus absorbed the eternal punishment for our sin by being forsaken on the cross. The Holy Spirit has connected us (if we are connected) to Jesus. Normally, through the process of baptism. We can throw this away. The biblically listed methods of doing this are: distorting the Gospel (Gal. 5:2-4), being unrepentant despite the pleas of the Spirit (numerous verses), neglecting God’s means of keeping our connection viable (Parable of the Sower), refusing to forgive (Lord’s Prayer/Matthew 6). After our death, there is nothing to suggest the possibility of undoing our salvation. Isaiah 65:20 is meant to be rhetorical.

Is a damned person eternal? Their resurrected body doesn’t seem to be:

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 4:1-3 (ESV)

They won’t need a body for the New Earth because they won’t be staying.

46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Matthew 25:46 (ESV)

Will Good People Be Lost?

The text discusses challenging biblical concepts, particularly the harsh consequences of sin and the unpredictability of salvation. It highlights that both minor and major sins lead to damnation unless atoned for by Jesus. It explores divine love and justice, emphasizing God’s plan for salvation, the unique role of Jesus, and the urgency of sharing this message with others.

There are a couple of things that God reveals in the Bible that are tough to accept. One is the severity of the punishment for sin. Sin can manifest itself in people in ways that are not that destructive. Still, unless it is atoned for by Jesus minor sins are as damning as major ones, and damnation is serious and permanent.

The other difficult thing is that some fairly serious criminals can come to faith and be saved, while other nice people never do and, yes, they are lost. That doesn’t seem fair to us, but we have the wrong perspective on the situation. It is almost inherent to our being to feel that good people deserve good things and bad people deserve bad things. Other world religions fall in line with this tendency. But that is not how it always works in this situation.

If I were to add a third difficult thing to accept it would be that a God of love would accept this arrangement. To sort this out, we have to take a deep dive into the character of the being who has created all things and who is the ultimate judge of what is good and evil.

The first thing to note is that God didn’t create any being in order to damn them. He foresaw that certain individuals would rebel against His primacy and that sin and evil would be a real thing, but rather than scrap Creation God had a plan from the beginning.

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Ephesians 1:4 (NIV)

The plan wasn’t for every creature. It doesn’t have a way to save or reform Satan, a cherubim/seraphim. It doesn’t have a way to save rebellious angels/demons. Their rebellion is different in a way. They choose out of a completely free will to reject God. Adam and Eve did not conceive of evil on their own. Satan deceived them. The rest of us are deeply influenced by our “sinful nature”. This is some sort of genetic abnormality created by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3) and passed along to everyone. Other creatures are dragged into this cycle of sin, death, and decay unwillingly.

The plan shows the primary characteristics of God, which is love and justice. He is willing to make to ultimate sacrifice to save. The Son of God becomes a human and absorbs the main penalty for sin Himself. But God doesn’t just forgive because He can. He keeps His law in tact. Jesus even asked if this could be done a different way as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Father’s commitment to not arbitrarily change His own law led to Jesus going through with the plan.

25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:25-26 (NIV)

He is “just” (i.e. He won’t change the Law), and the justifier (He makes a sacrifice out of love to save.)

A further statement about God’s intent is found in the most famous passage in Scripture:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John 3:16-17 (NIV)

Because of the nature of the plan, Jesus is not an option. He is the only way to stand before God as sinless. Even very good people are sinful. We all do something contrary to God’s will every day. We are all modified physically from what we are meant to be. When we call somebody “good” or think of ourselves as “good”, we are speaking relative to others we have known or heard about. We don’t meet that criteria relative to God.

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good.”

Matthew 19:17 (NIV)

Even knowing the interplay between God’s love and God’s justice, the situation of those who are not connected to Christ can be disturbing. Especially if we know them personally. It is not a bad thing to be disturbed. God is disturbed. It should move us to do what we can. We can tell people of the pertinent parts of Jesus’ story and urge them to read it if they can. We can tell of the promise and the Bible’s description of our human situation. We can even share the rational proofs for the reality of the Bible’s revelation. (Please look at my other blog: http://givingchrist.com for some of these.). We can also demonstrate the love of God through action. God must do the rest. If there is a chance of connecting them to Christ, God will do whatever He can during life and possibly beyond it until Judgement Day. But people will be lost, and some of them will be “good people”.

What Is Satan?

The post explores the biblical figure of Satan, discussing his nature, identities, and presence in both Heaven and Earth, including his manifestation as the King of Tyre. It argues that Satan is not merely a myth but a complex being with significant influence over human history and actions, rooted in scriptural evidence.

Satan is a name found in several places in the Bible and many places in popular culture. He had some pseudonyms: the Devil, Lucifer, the Deceiver, the Accuser, Beelzebub, among others. I would like to deal with the question of what is this being. We will only touch on such tangential questions as what is he like, what can he do, and where is he.

Let’s start with a prominent assumption: Satan is just a myth and a way to personify evil. Not many people want Satan to be a real, thinking, active being. Without direct, obvious interaction it is pretty easy to dismiss a real Satan. Even the majority of Christians do that. The intel that we have has to come ultimately out of revelation from God. Otherwise, we are unlikely to know. While Satan isn’t a primary theme of Scripture, he shows up more than you might think. The context is always personal. It does not seem to be talking about evil showing up as a concept. Is it mythical? Suspend that thought for moment.

To get at what Satan actually is, first we must see where he can be present. Frequently, Satan is depicted as being in Heaven, like in the challenge to God to test Job (Job 1:7). He is also shows up on Earth, like in the Garden of Eden and others. He does seem to be able to either disguise himself or to occupy a human being (2 Corinthians 11:14, Luke 22:3). With that information I would like us to consider a passage that doesn’t use “Satan” by name.

11 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me: 12 “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God:

“You were the signet of perfection,
    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
    every precious stone was your covering,
sardius, topaz, and diamond,
    beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;
    and crafted in gold were your settings
    and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
    they were prepared.
14 You were an anointed guardian cherub.
    I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
    in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
15 You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,
    till unrighteousness was found in you.
16 In the abundance of your trade
    you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
    and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
    from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
    you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
    I exposed you before kings,
    to feast their eyes on you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities,
    in the unrighteousness of your trade
    you profaned your sanctuaries;
so I brought fire out from your midst;
    it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
    in the sight of all who saw you.
19 All who know you among the peoples
    are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end
    and shall be no more forever.”

Ezekiel 28:11-19 (ESV)

So is this lament about Satan or the King of Tyre at Ezekiel’s time? I think the answer is “yes”. Satan either disguised himself or possessed a person and was the King of Tyre. I say this because much of this story could not apply to a normal person and it then gives part of Satan’s backstory. The end (v.18b-19) could apply to Satan as manifested as the King. It could also be prophetic of Satan’s ultimate fate.

What does it tell us? That Satan is a cherub. Cherub’s are not fat, little, baby angels that dispense toilet paper. The word means “living one”. Ezekiel uses that term in Ezekiel 1 as he describes the creatures that accompany God. It is also picked up in Revelation 4. In Isaiah’s vision of heaven in Isaiah 6, he uses the term “seraphim” or “burning ones”. This is just how they look to Isaiah. They are clearly the same creatures: four faces, four to six wings, what looks like eyes on their wings. In fact cherubim have wings, angels are never said to have wings; but it seems impossible to get people or AI to get that popular depiction out of their heads. Cherubim and Seraphim are synonyms. They are not angels. This is very restricted club. A limited creation by God. There seems to be just four in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Revelation. Satan would make a fifth.

Was or is Satan nasty looking? No, very beautiful, at least at first. Satan wasn’t evil from the start either. He was a creature of freewill and invented rebellion against God. It is important to note that Satan isn’t an equivalent of God in power, but just evil, even if he momentarily thought he was. Isaiah 14 has a similar passage. This one nominally against the King of Babylon.

Sheol beneath is stirred up
    to meet you when you come;
it rouses the shades to greet you,
    all who were leaders of the earth;
it raises from their thrones
    all who were kings of the nations.
10 All of them will answer
    and say to you:
‘You too have become as weak as we!
    You have become like us!’
11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
    the sound of your harps;
maggots are laid as a bed beneath you,
    and worms are your covers.

12 “How you are fallen from heaven,
    O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
    you who laid the nations low!
13 You said in your heart,
    ‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
    I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
    in the far reaches of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
    I will make myself like the Most High.’
15 But you are brought down to Sheol,
    to the far reaches of the pit.

Isaiah 14:9-15 (ESV)

While this passage could easily be understood as describing the delusional fantasies of the King of Babylon, it also could be describing a Satan possessed man. The human King of Babylon ends up in Sheol (you can search above for “Sheol” in this blog), but a bit a Satan’s backstory is revealed. He thought he could be God. Is that naïveté, stupidity, or pride? Cherubim seem to have extraordinary powers, but they are no where near God in that category. Satan is not the evil equivalent of Jesus either as the Mormons proclaim.

In Revelation 12, Satan is cast to Earth and banished from Heaven in connection with the victory of Jesus. We do not have a comprehensive report on what he can or cannot do. What pushes him out the realm of myth for me is not only the consistent talk all through Scripture of Satan being an actual, created being; but it is also the horrid history of mankind.

Humans are capable of great evil all by ourselves, but I doubt that we would reach the depths that we have gone without significant outside help. Satan can possess, manifest and influence with great effectiveness. It would not surprise me if the nastiest characters in human history were either Satan in disguise, possessed by Satan, or under extreme influence. I don’t think evil could hold together as a system, movement, or institution the way that it has without such help.

Am I being superstitious or just ignorant of our capacity for evil? Again, I defer to Scripture. Society has swung from finding Satan under every rock to the opposite extreme of dismissing his existence. The truth is likely in between.

God’s Declaration In Isaiah 66

The content discusses the prophetic insights of Isaiah, emphasizing accurate predictions concerning Jesus and His significance beyond Israel. It highlights themes of eternal life and the New Earth, expressing God’s promise to reach all nations. The conclusion warns of the consequences for those rejecting Jesus, presenting a stark contrast to the hope provided in faith.

Looks into the future within the Old Testament are common. That is what prophecy is. We are living far enough in the future from the time of Isaiah that almost everything in it we can examine through hindsight. Almost.

Isaiah had warnings for the people of Israel and for the surrounding nations. It has all come true to my knowledge. It is so accurate that skeptics conclude that Isaiah had to be written after the fact, but there is no proof of this. Isaiah also spoke a lot about the coming of Jesus: virgin birth, living in Galilee, heir of David, widely rejected by the Jews, put through a judgment process where He did not defend himself, crucified for the salvation of others, and buried with the rich. They would be impossible or undesirable events to stage.

Toward the end of Isaiah there is a large and confusing section about the New Earth which is still future even to us. Check out my take on this section here: https://afterdeathsite.com/2022/05/24/wrestling-with-isaiah-65/

Then there are the final verses of the last chapter. It speaks about some stuff that is in our rear-view mirror and some that is not. It starts like this:

18 “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, 19 and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.

Isaiah 66:18-19 (ESV)

It is intriguing (to me) to ponder what constituted the right time to send Jesus to fulfill the Law and create an opening for people to have eternal life with God starting with Heaven and then later adding the New Earth. With this event comes a spreading out of knowledge about the God who encountered Israel for millennia, the events around Jesus’ life, and the promise of eternal life. God didn’t keep His promise within the borders of a chosen people. He opened the doors to everyone starting most likely 33AD. His description of “the nations” is strange to us, but must have been well known to the contemporaries of Isaiah. “They” in verse 19 must be the early disciples. The communication of God’s actions and the promise of eternal life continues with the disciples of Jesus today all around the world.

20 And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. 21 And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.

Isaiah 66:20-21 (ESV)

Not only was it surprise to hear that God would reach out to other nations, but an even bigger surprise that some of them would be used like the priests and Levites. This chosen group served in the temple as their sole occupation. They were chosen because of the faithfulness of one clan during the Exodus. In the future this would be opened up. I am such a person.

Another surprise is that these saved foreigners would be “your brothers”. This is not a promise to gather the dispersed Jewish people but rather to gather the elect from every nation. These are people whom God can foresee that He will be able to reach. Not everyone will embrace the promise of Jesus. This is sadly observable. Why? I’m not sure the cause or causes. But some will.

The weird modes of transportation are interesting too. I have never brought somebody to church on a dromedary. But this isn’t transportation to a place exactly. This is being involved in diverse ways in people’s lives so that they are connected to Jesus and when we all move past Judgment Day and to the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22), we will be like a grain offering that makes God very happy. The New Jerusalem is a place. We just help bring people to Jesus.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth
    that I make
shall remain before me, says the Lord,
    so shall your offspring and your name remain.
23 From new moon to new moon,
    and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
declares the Lord.

Isaiah 66:22-23 (ESV)

Eternal life with God is just that–eternal. That is the consistent message of the rest of Scripture. This passage speaks of the permanence of the New Heavens and New Earth, the offspring of the people of faith within Israel, and their name. Part of our experience in Heaven and the New Earth will be worship. Don’t relate that to times you were bored in church. It is also notable that it is “all flesh”. Humans aren’t complete as a disembodied spirit. Paul calls that being “naked” (2 Corinthians 5). We will have a Heavenly Body and a resurrected Earthly body. Worship will be an immersive and positive experience. Everyone will do it. Everyone who is saved that is.

24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

I don’t think that we will make it a part of our eternal routine to observe “dead bodies”. The Bible says that everybody (saved and not) will be a part of the resurrection of our earthly bodies. While this may seem like an amazing and hopeful moment, those who stand judgment bearing their own sin rather than the righteousness we receive from Jesus will find their resurrected bodies are not indestructible. Malachi 4 speaks about them being turned to ash. That will be observable on Judgment Day, probably not after it.

The spirit of a damned person then experiences the ultimate consequence for sin that was completely avoidable. By rejecting Jesus they allowed themselves to bear the full consequence of the Law. They will experience an unending decay (the worm does not die), a fire that is never quenched, be abhorrent to themselves and others, and forsaken by God.

For my part, I wish this ended at verse 23. I can’t deny verse 24 and others like it. Jesus says many will enter destruct and few into life. I hope those relative terms do not mean like they sound. It sure sounds like the majority will experience verse 24.

What Is Hell Fire?

The post contemplates the concept of Hell, defining it as a place of eternal suffering for those without Jesus’ atonement. It explores metaphors used in scripture, such as fire and Hades, to convey the nature of divine judgment. Ultimately, it emphasizes the profound severity of separation from God’s presence in Hell.

It’s a name of a missile, right? It is, but I want to contemplate something else. First, let’s establish a meaning for the word, “Hell”. When I speak of Hell, I am talking about the final place of eternal judgment. It is a post-Judgment Day actual place. It is a place of suffering that includes all who have rebelled against God and have an eternal nature (they don’t just cease to exist) and do not have Jesus’ atonement for their sins. It includes people, Satan, and demons. Jesus uses the word “Gehenna” to refer to it. Revelation calls it the “Lake of Fire”.

Fire, as we have experienced it, is a rapid oxidation resulting in an exothermic reaction. Light a match, that is what is happening. Is that what is happening in Hell, or on Judgment Day (1 Corinthians 3:10f, 2 Peter 3), or even in Sheol? Just a lot of combustion? I doubt it.

When the Bible needs to introduce a concept to us for which we have no frame of reference, it has to use something we know as a metaphor. Fire, as we have experienced it, is similar to the things mentioned above in some way, but it is not necessarily oxidation. I could do this with something in our physical world to help someone with no knowledge of it. I could call nuclear fission a fire. They are both hot.

Let’s start with Sheol/Hades. If you are not familiar with these terms, type them in the search box in the top right of this page. In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells the account of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Both are in Hades but one on the “good” side of the chasm and one on the bad side. The Rich Man describes the bad side this way:

24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

Luke 16:24 (ESV)

Maybe it’s combustion, does it matter? It helps to understand that while all of these use “fire” or “flames”, they are not the same thing and this adds to our understanding of what will happen. Hopefully, we never experience what the Rich Man is experiencing. Jesus is the way to not experience it. For me, it raises the questions of where Sheol is and what is a person’s nature within it. I think it is obvious that Sheol/Hades is not in the center of the Earth as the ancients imagined it. Volcanic activity was just an available metaphor. If it is other dimensional, then do we have a body for Sheol that experiences heat. If this is just their spirit. What can a spirit experience? It suffers to the intensity of being in the scorching heat of a volcanic chamber.

How about the destruction of the universe in 2 Peter 3?

7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

2 Peter 3:7,10 (ESV)

The destruction of the universe does sound like a nuclear-type reaction. If fact, during the Cold War, people read this as a nuclear destruction of our own doing. Even nuclear reactions leave molecular remains of slightly less mass. If this verse is being that technical, then this “fire” may go further than even a nuclear fission process.

How about this fire?

13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

1 Corinthians 3:13 (ESV)

This fire doesn’t consume anything. It tests and reveals the historical actions of one’s life. More like the Goblet of Fire in Harry Potter. Here the point of comparison may be appearance, just like “tongues of fire” resting the disciples heads on the day of Pentecost. There is some discomfort with this. This is the judgment of our deeds. While not the determining factor in our salvation, it is a probing evaluation of life which will be less than perfect and somewhat embarrassing.

Finally, we get to Hell:

14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:14-15 (ESV)

This is the fire most to be feared. Yet, it is a fire that doesn’t seem to consume anything. Neither combustion nor fission, it deals out eternal suffering. The same questions I applied above to Sheol/Hades apply here. Where is it? Most likely some other dimensional plane that is not connected to the New Universe nor Heaven. Is it just the same as Hades? Here I would refer to what Jesus experienced on the cross to spare us from this fate. He is forsaken by the Father.

The presence of God is a very complicated thing. There is the full blown presence of Heaven at present, but even in Sheol/Hades there is some element of His presence (see Psalm 139). Now Hades is dumped into Hell. Is this somehow completely forsaken and removed entirely from the presence of God? What happens to any part of reality in that situation? Do even spirits burn? The point of contact is clearly the suffering connected with a burn. Is that just the best one can do to describe what happens in a relatable way? The resurrected body, which all receive if briefly (Daniel 12) and is referred to as indestructible (1 Corinthians 13) does prove to be destructible for the damned (Malachi 4). In Hell as person does not have this body. Stripped down in their nature to probably just the spirit, Satan, rebellious angels, and the damned among mankind experience what it is like to be forever out of the presence of God. I don’t care to have a fully relatable experience to this.

Accepting the Reality of Eternal Existence

For some there is no doubt. At least verbally. We will go on beyond our death. These people tend to error on the side of thinking everybody has something good waiting for them. For others, there is a great deal of doubt. We usually don’t get a preview. People who have a Near Death Experience are almost all in on eternal life. The rest of us just see the impact of death on our flesh, and it is sobering.

Certainty that we die and then disappear, is equally hard to maintain. Many are very bold about it until death looms near. Then they are not quite as enthusiastic about the prospect and begin to hope for more.

Certainty is not the same thing as faith. Faith is several things. It is first a Holy Spirit bypass of whatever keeps us from being receptive to God because of our sinful condition. Then it is a God-produced connection between us and Christ. Then that connection produces a growing trust in all of God’s promises, His capabilities, and His character. It also generates certainty in the reality of eternal life and what will happen to you in your eternal existence.

The power of God’s Word is a driving force in having certainty in eternal life.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

John 14:1-2 (ESV)

Who has reliable information on this topic? Even Near Death Experiences could be an illusion of a dying brain or a delusion created by Satan. Jesus raised people from the dead, was raised from the dead himself, and demonstrated that He was God through clear and observable miracles. Furthermore, His character was on display for all around him. For us, it is the power of the Word with the in-person accounts that give us the ability to “believe” in both Father and Son in this regard.

God could have created us to live and to die and be gone. He has nothing to gain by lying to us about this fact of our nature. Jesus says in the above passage that He would have told us if eternal life in Heaven was not on the table. It is on the table. That is why Jesus became one of us in the first place.

Our certainty comes with understanding the Gospel and God developing in us a deeper faith through the Word. First, it is our nature to be eternal because we are more than a body. We are a body and soul. I think that you can experience this much. Minimizing our will, memory, all conscious thought to chemical reactions in the brain, does not make sense. If our thoughts were just the product of brain chemistry and electrical activity then we would have no will. We clearly have a will. We are not “meat robots”. That is wrong.

It does take revelation from outside of ourselves to know about things that are beyond our sensory capabilities, beyond death, and probably beyond our space-time. Does the account of Jesus and the revelation that comes with Jesus have any credibility? Seek out the arguments. They are hard to dismiss unless you have a bias and want to dismiss them. God tells us what comes next. This whole blog covers it. There is eternal life (eternal existence with God) and eternal death (not non-existence but exile from God as in Hell). Eternal life is God’s gift predicated on what Jesus has already accomplished . God has proven to be trustworthy.

The only qualification to the certainty that we can have is that people can fall away. I must respect the theoretical possibility that I will abandon God’s gift. God gives plenty resources enough to never fall away, but people still manage it. I don’t doubt because I know that God is enough. When actually facing my final hour, there is no need to look at myself and ask if I have done enough. Jesus is enough. I don’t do anything. Therefore I am certain.

Sheol As a Waiting Room

Sheol is a Hebrew term for the waiting place of the dead, distinct from Hell, and appears in the Old Testament. Both the righteous and unrighteous go there. The understanding of Sheol is often obscured by translations. Some believe it offers a second chance for salvation post-Judgment Day, but interpretations vary widely.

Many people are not aware of what Sheol is, so first let me give you a quick primer. Sheol is a Hebrew term used 65 times in the Old Testament. Its Greek equivalent “Hades” shows up another 10. It is not a reference to “Hell” as most people think of Hell. It is more the waiting room for Hell. It is not “purgatory” either. Though I would bet that an ancient misunderstanding of Sheol led to the development of the idea of purgatory.

Sheol has escaped many people’s understanding thanks to some lousy translating. Many versions of the English Bible cover over the word by translating it as “the grave” or “the pit”. This is garbage. Sheol is a place and a proper noun. Leave it as is.

In the Old Testament everyone expected to go to Sheol whether they were considered righteous or unrighteous. It was the place of the dead. Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19f) gives us the best glimpse into Sheol as it was.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

Luke 16:22-23 (ESV)

Notice that both the rich man and Lazarus are in Hades (Sheol) but in significantly different conditions. Lazarus is in “the bosom” of Abraham, and the rich man is in torment. He explains the torment as being because of fire. Thus the confusion with the post-Judgement Day “lake of fire”, which we think of as Hell.

Lazarus, Abraham, and the rest of the Old Testament righteous are waiting. For what? For Jesus to complete atonement for their sins on the cross and for Jesus to complete the Law in a way that they did not with His life. Timing actually matters. You didn’t suffer in this part of Sheol. The Roman Catholic Church refers to this place as “The Limbo of the Fathers”. Others prefer “Abraham’s bosom”. I like “the good neighborhood of Sheol. It reminds you where it is. What did they do there (some for millennia)? Don’t know.

When Jesus had completed His work, He set them free.

As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
    even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.

Zechariah 9:11-12 (ESV)

You can see that they were rewarded for their patience and faith. Want to read more about Jesus’ descent into Sheol read here: https://afterdeathsite.com/2017/04/04/christs-descent-into-hell-part-4/

People like the rich man were/are waiting too. Without the forgiveness of Christ you are stuck in the bad neighborhood of Sheol until Judgment Day. Could actual Hell be any worse? Read this: https://afterdeathsite.com/2023/11/14/how-is-sheol-different-than-hell/

Those who now die connected to Jesus will never go to the “waiting room”. Eternal life in Heaven begins immediately.

Is there any hope once you find yourself in the bad neighborhood of Sheol. Many people and denominations say “no”. To be honest there is not a lot of Scriptural information on the topic. Those who say no are depending on one verse, which I think they misapply. It is Hebrews 9:27:

27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:27-28 (ESV)

You can see that the context is about how many times Christ is sacrificed. The answer is one. Similarly, how many lives do we live before judgment–one. It does not say the final judgment is immediate. There is the waiting room. The one Bible passage that suggests some measure of hope is 1 Peter 4:6:

6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)

“The gospel was preached to those now dead” is not a great translation. It is more like “for indeed the dead ones were evangelized (declared the good message)”. The context of “the dead ones” is found in 1 Peter 3:20. They are the disobedient people killed by Noah’s flood. They waited in the bad neighborhood of Sheol until Jesus declared the promise of salvation to them. Then some, if not all, were made alive to God.

How far does this second chance go? I don’t know. I hope far. It is clear that many make it through the waiting room all the way to their appointment at Judgment Day. Hell won’t be empty, and that is regrettable since what Christ did was big enough for all.

Angels and Demons

The text explores the nature of angels and demons, clarifying misconceptions about their existence and origins. It discusses how demons may be corrupted angels, influenced by Satan, while angels are distinct beings not derived from deceased humans. Both entities impact human life, with scripture referencing their roles in spiritual warfare and personal experiences of possession and intervention.

Most people, even if they are biblically illiterate, have heard of angels and Demons. They are known in other world religions as well, which is interesting. They are encountered by humans both in modern times, New Testament times, and ancient times. Are they real? And if so, what are they?

First, let’s say what they are not. Demons are not an ignorant understanding of mental illness. Mental illness is dysfunction of the brain. It can happen for a variety of reasons from genetics to trauma. I would not doubt that some trauma could be inflicted from spiritual (i.e. demonic) source, however. Angels, on the other hand, are not dead people. You do not die and become an Angel. Though the term, “angelus”, just means messenger, it is a term that is usually used to describe a certain species of being normally resident in Heaven. Angels are also not “Seraphim or Cherubim (in English: “burning ones” or “living ones”). These are synonyms for something of even higher capability than Angels.

It would appear that Demons are/were Angels. The information that we have is cryptic, but it appears that Satan (a Cherubim) managed to corrupt a large minority of Angels and turn them against God. Unlike humans where Satan was able to genetically corrupt the first set (Adam and Eve) and therefore corrupt every one of us, only a portion of Angels are corrupted. Perhaps this is because they don’t replicate, or that there were many Angels before Satan got to them.

What happened to Demons? This is very sketchy. Satan seems to have been able to hang on to residence in Heaven until Jesus’ victory on the cross. Nothing is said about Demons in this regard, except in Jude it says this:

6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

Jude 6 (ESV)

From this passage we learn that Judgment Day isn’t just for people. Angels and Satan will receive their final disposition on that day as well. This passage can’t be about all fallen Angels, because many are shown creating problems on Earth. How is the timing of Jude 6 connected to this passage?

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the Earth, and his Angels were thrown down with him.

Revelation 12:7-9 (ESV)

Maybe these events are disconnected, maybe not. In the end, it would appear that we have both Angels and Demons among us. How do they contribute to our situations both positively and negatively?

On a personal level, the Bible records instances of demonic possession. There could also be lesser ways that a demon could affect a person. The most famous being the possession that inspired the book, “The Exorcist”. The Washington Post just happened to document this story back in the 1950’s. In that story the window that allowed the Demon to take hold was the dabbling in occultic practices by a “spiritualist” aunt and a boy’s use of a Ouija board to try to communicate to her after she died. I am not certain why and what occultic practices make this possible. They were also behind the scenes in all of the possessions encountered by Jesus. Pagan people lived very near or in Israel. People dabbled in these things and paid a price.

On a positive note, both the Bible and personal experiences account for angelic intervention. The most common being a helper that should not be there who assists someone in desperate need and then disappears.

There is also some interesting stuff about Angels and Demons at the national level, but I would like to briefly address our interaction with them after our death. First, Angels do not have wings and neither will you. My piece of art above in generated by AI. I cannot convince the “AI” that Angels do not have wings since there is so much garbage on the internet that shows that they do. This idea is an addition mostly from Renaissance artists. Cherubim do have wings. Angels will be a regular part of our existence in Heaven. Much like humans, they will seem like neighbors.

Demons will not be in Sheol, they will either remain on Earth or be contained in someplace called “the Abyss” until Judgment Day. After Judgment Day they will not be tormenting people in Hell. They will be suffering as well.

Do Humans Have a Body in Hell and Sheol?

I bet you were lying in bed wondering about this very question. I grant you that it is an obscure issue for which we have little information but it is a parallel to the important issue of whether we have a body in Heaven (to which I say yes), and it connects to same verse in Scripture, which is 2 Corinthians 5:1f.

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:1-4(ESV)

Our body that we have during this life is a “tent”. It houses our spirit, but it is a legitimate part of what we are. That is why there is a resurrection of the body. Paul says that we do not wish to be “unclothed”, which means without a body. Can such a situation even exist?

The Bible does not say where Heaven, Sheol, or the final Lake of Fire actually are. The ancients conceived of Sheol as the center of the Earth, and Heaven as being outside the furthest reach of the universe; but that does not make it so. Recent work in theoretical physics uses the concept of other dimensions. Albeit these dimensions are not observable because they are very small. There is no constraining reason why they must be small. What if they are unobservable just because we are constrained to live and observe in only three spatial dimensions. What if other dimensions do exist, explaining some of the odd behavior of gravity and quantum physics, but actually define the space of parallel universes. These universes would not have to be in lock-step with ours because they are only connected at the quantum level. This could define the space of Heaven, Sheol, the Abyss, and possibly Hell.

Going with this very unprovable theory, that would be why an “earthly” body is Earthly. It only can move in the dimensions of this space-time. And why a “heavenly” is Heavenly. It moves in Heaven’s dimensions. Could Sheol be its own space-time with a Sheol appropriate body. Not sure of the adjective for that one.

Descriptions of Sheol (please use the Search box if you are not familiar with this term to find posts about it) seem very physical. For example the rich man in Luke 16:

23 and in Hades (same as Sheol), being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

Luke 16:23-24 (ESV)

Flame, water, cool, tongue all seem very physical. This would also connect to the general resurrection of the dead. The damned would need an earthly body to stand before God at Judgment Day on Earth. It would also connect to the destruction of those Earthly bodies:

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 4:1-3 (ESV)

They won’t be needing those bodies where they are going next. Is the final Lake of Fire (i.e. Gehenna or Hell) also a “bodily experience”? Maybe it is not even connected to our multi-dimensional reality. Maybe “forsakeness” means total disconnection from creation? I think that is an interesting and disturbing thought.

One final thought. Paul speaks about being “unclothed”. The spirit of Samuel is “raised up” from the good neighborhood of Sheol by the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:13-15). He seems “unclothed” in the bodily sense. He appears “wrapped in a robe”. What about ghosts? I don’t know how they would fit in the model given us by Scripture. Are they figments of a person’s imagination? Are they demonic? Are they people “brought up” from Sheol and left here? Are they just part of a tired sit-com (I prefer the British version)? The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost when Jesus came to them walking on the water. From where did such an idea come? I don’t know.

Again, most of this post is unproveable and unstated by Scripture verbatim. But it does make sense to me. I hope you find it thought provoking and may be only find through experience about the Heavenly body and your Resurrected body.

Are There Levels of Hell?

In the classic poem, Dante’s Inferno, Dante pictures Hell as nine concentric circles of increasing suffering. Each based on a person’s predominate sin. Satan is at the bottom frozen into a lake. So there would be a “cold day in Hell” if Dante were correct.

The Bible has very little to say about the final place of judgment for the damned. Revelation describes it as a “lake of fire”. Jesus’ word for it, Gehenna, describes a burning garbage dump. Jesus describes it as a place of flames and where the worm does not die. “Eternal” suffering is also stated. We can also infer from Jesus’ suffering on the cross that the punishment for sin is both a physical death and a spiritual death, where spiritual death is being forsaken by God. That is enough to know that I don’t want a tour let alone to permanently end up there.

The only passage to possibly suggest a variation of suffering comes from Jesus:

20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

Matthew 11:20-24 (ESV)

I think the key of understanding this passage is that it speaks of it being “tolerable” on the “day of Judgment”, and not after. The people in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum had seen Jesus do miracles. They will know that they had unrefutable proof before their eyes and still rejected it.

It is suggested that Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, and Gomorrah would have repented had they been able to see this. At least, many people in these cities would have repented. The other cities had their opportunity and blew it.

Will it be a similar situation for those who heard the Gospel? Maybe even had family members plead with them. They may have heard the considerable proof that comes with Christian apologetics. Still, they rejected the opportunity of salvation. There will be fear and regret, for sure, only too late.

These realizations have to arrive on a person long before Judgment Day. It should be evident at death if you find yourself in Sheol. https://afterdeathsite.com/2023/11/14/how-is-sheol-different-than-hell/

Is there another level of “tolerability” that comes with the possible hope that still exists in Sheol? The cities that Jesus condemns had their opportunity to see and believe. Many other cities, though very evil, had not. What does 1 Peter 4:6 and Jesus’ actions in 1 Peter 3:19-20 say about a possible witness and repentance post-mortem?

19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

1 Peter 3:19-20 (ESV)

In this part the people who were drowned in Noah’s flood get a witness from Jesus while in Sheol. They were not known for their virtue. All they could claim is ignorance. Then just a few verses later:

6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)

This reads like a post-mortem opportunity to me. The use of Hebrews 9:27 to counterpoint this is clear misapplication of a verse. If opportunity did/does exist for Tyre, etc. or other people who die in ignorance, then it is certainly “more tolerable”. Faith is a strange thing, however. The reaction of the people who saw the miracles but still did not believe proves it. Even those who would receive witness in Sheol would not necessarily repent.

This topic only interests me because I care. I would rather that no one experiences Hell. I feel that way because God feels that way. But the Law is something that God doesn’t change. He fulfills it for us through Christ. To receive what He has done makes all the difference.