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.
afterdeathsite 