Meaning of the English Word Hell
“Hell” is an english word which traditionally describes a place of divine punishment after death. As
such, it’s the word that English translations of the Bible normally use to translate the greek word
gehenna, which Jesus uses in the gospels when speaking about such a place.
Meaning of the Greek Word Gehenna
The greek word gehenna literally means “valley of Hinnom” - a valley near Jerusalem - but in the 1st
century it was the word used by Jews to describe their belief in a place of divine punishment after
death.1
The connection between the Hinnom valley and divine punishment comes from the Old Testament.
Because God’s people had done idolatrous and murderous things there (2 Chronicles 28:3), God
promised to punish them by making it a valley of slaughter into which their dead bodies would be
thrown (Jeremiah 7:30-33). It was therefore a fitting word to describe the ultimate “place of
judgement” beyond death.
That Jesus used the word gehenna in the same way as 1st century Jews (to refer to a place of
punishment after death) is clear from the way Jesus describes it; for example,
‘Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can
destroy both soul and body in [gehenna]’ (Matthew 10:28).
Meaning of the Lake of Fire
The lake of fire in the book of Revelation also describes a place of eternal punishment after death
(i.e., what Jesus meant by Gehenna2). As the visions of Revelation are full of symbolism, it’s quite
possible (though by no means certain) that the lake of fire is a “picture” of eternal punishment and
not a literal description of hell.
The Nature of Eternal Punishment in Gehenna/Hell/the Lake of Fire
The Watchtower Society who lead the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” teach that the eternal punishment the
Bible speaks of is that of being annihilated (made non-existent) - and they point to the fact that
eternal punishment is also described as eternal destruction. Are they correct? The key question to
ask is what the Bible means by eternal destruction. Does it simply mean permanent destruction or
does it refer to an everlasting experience of destruction?
Though not everyone agrees, there are a number of good reasons for interpreting it in the latter
sense. For example,
1. Jesus speaks about eternal judgement in a way that seems to suggest something much
worse than simply ceasing to exist:
“...if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled
than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire”
1
Incidentally, there’s no evidence for the popular myth that the Hinnom valley was a smouldering
garbage dump in the time of Jesus (the first person to suggest that was a Rabbi in 1,200AD!).
2
Jesus also spoke of Gehenna as a place of fire (Matthew 5:22)
(Mark 9:43)
“...woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better
for that man if he had not been born.”
(Mark 14:21)
“...at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the
righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.”
(Matthew 13:49-50)
2. Jesus sometimes seems to describe hell as a place of eternal torment. For example,
On the day of judgement, we read that Jesus “will say to those on his left, ‘Depart
from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’”
(Matthew 25:41) and that “these will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life” (v.46).
Though phrases like this don’t constitute absolute proof, an eternal punishment of
eternal fire (instead of eternal life) more naturally suggests an everlasting
punishment than a permanent one.
3. The book of Revelation seems to clearly and plainly describe “the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels” of which Jesus spoke as a place of everlasting torment.
“If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or
on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the
cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of
the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment
goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night”
(Revelation 14:9-11)
“...the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur
where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and
night forever and ever...if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life,
he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
(Revelation 20:10, 15)
However!
The good news is that, though God takes evil extremely seriously - and, perhaps, much more
seriously than we would like – his Son came to take the punishment we deserve on the cross. On the
cross, the infinitely glorious Son of God chose to suffer as a forsaken sinner so that we don’t have to
be forsaken. If we are willing to turn our back on sin (essentially, the desire to make life work
without due thought, love and obedience to the God from whom life comes) and trust Jesus as our
Leader and Saviour, God is willing to forgive us by sheer undeserved grace.
The bad news is that Hell is as real and serious as the Bible says it is. The good news is that sinners
can be saved ‘by grace...through faith’ (Ephesians 2:8).
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not
spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all
things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God,
who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
(Romans 8:31-35)