Hell – afterdeathsite

Fear God

God has been my friend and my mentor since childhood. God has never done me wrong. Even in His seeming inaction, I have found hindsight eventually as to why He didn’t act. With that said, it is hard for me to have fear of God in the classic way we understand fear.

As part of a summer Bible reading program that I am doing in my congregation, we have recently read Luke 12 which has provided the topic for today:

⁴“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. ⁵But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

Luke 12 :4-5 (ESV)

Because I know what Jesus did and why, and have a firm belief in the promise of God and God’s character, I don’t think of my future as potentially including Hell (here the word is Gehenna, a reference to post-Judgment Day punishment), but it would be wise to do so at least in theory. People fall away from grace. It happens. They can mangle the Gospel until it is ineffective (see Galatians), fail to forgive when required, wilt under difficulty or choke out because the temptations of the world. I don’t think about that happening to me. I don’t ponder it. But I need to respect that God sticks to the letter of His Law even when it costs Him. I don’t want my connection to Christ to become compromised. I have only Christ’s righteousness as my hope.

The context in which Jesus speaks these words is one of the original disciples potentially being afraid of what Jewish leaders might do to them. It is scary to confess Christ in an environment where that is not going to be accepted. Worse, if it will probably be persecuted. I don’t live in a family or society where being a Christian is actively persecuted, but I would like to think that, if I did, I would be brave enough and certain enough to not be afraid to confess Christ. My confession would be based on a love of God, not a fear of God. But fear of God wouldn’t be without reason.

⁸“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, ⁹but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

Luke 12:8-9 (ESV)

Here is a picture of Judgment Day that I don’t often ponder. People are separated to Jesus’ right and to His left. Some of those put on the left feel like they should be on the right. Before the angels of God, they are denied by Jesus. “I don’t know you”, is how it is expressed in a different passage. “I don’t believe/know Jesus”, is what got them there.

Denying Jesus is exactly what Peter did three times. Peter dared to hope for forgiveness, and he found it. Jesus gave Peter the chance to confess him three times a bit later. It was a chance to do things in reverse. There is forgiveness for being cowardly. It is tougher when the denial is adopting a different worldview that excludes Jesus as your Savior. Usually, people in that situation don’t seek forgiveness, but even in that situation, there can be hope.

All of these brushes with a Judgment Day disaster can be avoided with a healthy, non-surreal, fear of God. How can one get to that point? I think a great place to start is to ponder these words of Jesus and visualize being brave before you actually have to be brave. If you know that you are in a dangerous situation, ask God for bravery. Peter just thought he had it. There is also a difference between genuinely denying Christ and being clever enough to serve another day. God is not looking for people to invite martyrdom. Take comfort in these words if you are potentially in such a situation:

the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Luke 12:12 (ESV)

We are saved by God’s grace in the end, and not by being brave. Being brave may be pivotal in remaining with Christ. A healthy fear of God and the power of the Holy Spirit can provide these things.

Entering Through the Narrow Gate

The author reflects on a passage from Matthew 7:13-14, expressing concern over the “few” who will find the narrow way to life compared to the many destined for destruction. They discuss the implications of this truth, emphasizing the urgency of sharing the Gospel, and contemplate the meanings of destruction and the challenges of faith in Christ.

Perhaps one should not dislike a passage in the Bible. Yet, I cannot like the message of what I am writing about today. It is good to know. It is a regrettable truth. I doubt that God is happy about it. The passage that I am speaking about comes from the mouth of Jesus toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount. It says:

¹³“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)

The last word really bothers me, “few”. Few is a relative term. This indicates a minority when compared to those headed for destruction. If indeed that is what is being compared. The best I could hope for is that those saved are few compared to those who could be saved. The death of Jesus is enough for all mankind to be saved. No extra works are required, there just needs to be a connection made with Jesus. If 98% were saved, that could be construed as “few” compared to 100%. I really don’t think that is what is being said here, however.

Unfortunately it is way too easy to understand how you get to below 50%. Using the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8) as a model of understanding, many people end up being a hard path. Billions are confirmed adherents of other world religions that exclude Jesus from the role of savior. Access to the Gospel is not a problem. You can find it on the internet, hear it on the radio, come in contact with some Christian. But many have not had any real exposure to the Gospel. They do not seek what they do not know. That should bother us and motivate us to get the Word out there. It is likely that a large group will have their first real exposure to the Gospel in Sheol. I don’t have much information on this, but it aligns with Jesus’ apparent mission when he descends to Sheol after his death (1 Peter 3:18-20)https://afterdeathsite.com/2017/04/11/christs-descent-into-hell-part-5/

Other people will have plenty of exposure to the Gospel, but it is like seeds on a hardened path. They understand the concepts and it perhaps occupies their mind for a while, but the birds (Satan) snatches it away before it can take root. With those two groups alone, we are probably past 50%. Then there are the groups described as people who believe but are too shallow to have a resilient faith that can endure hardship or are those choked out by the cares of life, love of wealth, or love of the pleasures of life. With them we are probably way past 50% leaving only a relative few.

Another bothersome word in Matthew 7:13-14 is “destruction”. It is not a place name like Sheol or Gehenna. It is a description. I think “destruction” could describe either. Other descriptors for Sheol are “fire” and “worm” which are classic destroyers. If this is Sheol then it gives a dim hope. The hope is that the “many” enter the gates of Sheol but not necessarily the final judgment of Gehenna post-Judgement Day. But if I am honest, “destruction” sounds more like Gehenna. Little is said about Gehenna directly, but Jesus’ experience on the cross informs it. The spiritual punishment Jesus must endure under the Law is being forsaken. That will fall on the individual who is not connected to Christ.

When God completely pulls his presence from a place or person what should happen? Physics might suggest an increased rate of entropy at all levels. Does destruction come to an end when you are destroyed? Maybe. The Bible speaks of eternal punishment, but in what sense? Time needs to be understood as part of our reality and not transcending it. Time itself could be destroyed for the forsaken.

Finally, why describe the route to eternal life as “narrow” and “hard”? It is narrow because there is only one way to receive it, and that is Jesus. If Jesus were one choice among many, it would seem that the Father would have allowed Jesus to skip the misery of crucifixion, flogging, and forsakenness. But he did not. Those who don’t like the idea that Jesus is the only way deride it as a bigoted teaching. Unfortunately, I think it is a logical teaching that clearly is expressed in the Bible.

“Hard” seems out-of-place because we are saved by grace. We would not come to Jesus unless the Holy Spirit does the hard work of getting through to us with the Gospel. It is hard as humans to make the Gospel available to others. It was hard for Jesus to fulfill the Law and still suffer the ultimate punishment for sin. It is also hard to persevere in faith from the moment we are “in Christ” to the time of our death. As noted above, people fail to do so.

At the end of it all, what do you have? “Few”. The only consolation is that the relative few still constitutes millions if not billions of people.

The Bible’s Bad News

The text discusses the dual nature of the Bible, presenting both bad and good news. It argues that all humans are born with a sinful nature leading to eternal separation from God, but offers hope through Jesus Christ. Belief in Him is essential for salvation and eternal life, forming the crux of the Christian faith.

Before we are exposed to the Bible, a person’s view of themselves and probably of other people is that we are basically good. Similarly, most people want to believe in existence after physical death. We also want it to be good. So many passively believe that there is some sort of Heaven or other favorable existence awaiting them. It is very natural. I want to believe it too.

The Bible is meant to be extremely good news, but getting to the good news first requires hearing and accepting some very bad news that we don’t want to be true. The problem is that the proof of the bad news is all around us. The bad news is this: every human being is born with a distorted, sinful nature that did not come from God. That nature is probably resident in our DNA. It came from our common ancestors, so everyone is impacted. The distorted coding of our DNA produces a body, in particular a brain, that cannot believe the words of God on its own, it does not retain the ability to know and communicate with God that we had, it produces a personality that basically selfish, it creates desires for things and actions that God forbids, it creates a tendency to follow the ways of its designer and the designer is Satan.

Who wants to believe that? I don’t. The bad news gets worse. The condition of having a sinful nature, if unchecked, produces a sinful live that can be wildly dysfunctional and short.

Worse than that is the news about the default, eternal destiny of a human being. Sinners who do not and naturally cannot keep God’s laws perfectly will be permanently cut off from God and will suffer a horrible existence permanently. That is certainly something I would rather reject as unthinkable and false.

Then I look at humanity’s track record. It isn’t pretty. I look deeply at myself, and even though I was saved in my infancy, I see it. I see selfishness. I see the difficulty of believing God’s Word. I see the tendency to sin. I can’t argue against the accusation. I also am cornered into believing that the Bible’s presentation of the default destiny of a human is true.

The Bible, however, isn’t done after the presentation of the bad news. It is good news. The news is that God foresaw the problem we would have and produced a plan to counter it before the problem actually came to be. Objectively, it is a strange plan. Many are not inclined to believe it. There seems to be simpler ways to go about it. In a way it seems too good to be true. It is counter just about every other way the world works.

God will follow His demand for perfection. He does not deviate from His original requirements. That is how He is, so there is no “easier” route. He creates instead a way for naturally imperfect humans to have perfection.

This is what Jesus is for. The proof of Jesus’ historicity is strong. There are clear, specific prophecies about Him that can be shown to have existed before His birth. He did a slew of clearly miraculous things before eye witnesses who later went to their premature deaths as believers and vocal witnesses. He won over His own brother who initially did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the one prophesied about (who would?). He appeared to and won over a sworn enemy in Saul/ Paul. Outside of the biblical evidence are mentions of Christ and Christians dating to the first century. You have to want the narrative of the Bible to be untrue to write this stuff off.

The good news is this:

⁶“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

John 3:16-18, Jesus speaking (ESV)

It works out this way. We can’t keep God’s demands perfectly, so Jesus (the incarnated as a human Son of God)keeps the Law without error. He isn’t born with the same genetic sinful nature because of His unusual, virgin birth. Then, for the legal condemnation that we have earned, He voluntarily dies on the cross during which He is forsaken by the Father (i.e. damned) temporarily, probably three and one half hours. This fulfills half (the big half) of God’s requirements for sinners. The other half is that we physically must die. It is our only “contribution”.

The way that Jesus’ accomplishments get applied to an individual is not God just declaring it so. It isn’t even that we believe God’s promise and God takes note of it and writes our name in a book, though that happens too. It is that God somehow unites us with Jesus through something He does in the background when we are baptized in the name of Jesus. The fulfillment of the Law, the required getting through our sinful nature to create faith, and the uniting us with Christ is all done as a gift to us–a very valuable and costly gift. It is complex. It is different from “you get what you deserve or pay for”, which is the general rule of how the world works. It does seem too good to be true, because this mechanism can theoretically forgive even some terrible sinners. It depends on God getting through to them somehow.

Another thing that I would rather not believe is that the majority of mankind won’t benefit from this historical and generous opportunity.

¹³“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)

That means that some pretty nice people will still die in their sins because they rejected Jesus. Please don’t be one of them. Please don’t be a part of the “”many. Be a part of the “few”. The eternity spelled out for us that I have tried to describe in this blog is both terrible and beautiful. Jesus is the key to being a part of the beautiful. I know that the number of the few will be a large number of people. That is good. It can be more.

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:

¹⁴God 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. ²For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, ³if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. ⁴For 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. ²But 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. ³And 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.

⁴⁶And 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.

⁴For 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.

²⁵God 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— ²⁶he 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:

¹⁶For 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.¹⁷For 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.

¹¹Moreover, 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.
¹³You 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.
¹⁴You 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.
¹⁵You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,
    till unrighteousness was found in you.
¹⁶In 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.
¹⁷Your 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.
¹⁸By 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.
¹⁹All 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.
¹⁰All of them will answer
    and say to you:
‘You too have become as weak as we!
    You have become like us!’
¹¹Your 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!
¹³You 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;
¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
    I will make myself like the Most High.’
¹⁵But 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, ¹⁹and 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.

²⁰And 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. ²¹And 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.
²³From 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:

²⁴And 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?

⁷But 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?

¹³each 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:

¹⁴Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. ¹⁵And 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. ²In 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.²³In 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.
¹²Return 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:

²⁷Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so 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:

⁶For 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.

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