Gehenna: Yes; Hell: No
By John Gavazzoni
Jerusalem; Bethlehem; Judea; Samaria; Capernaum; Galilee: These were all locales in the gospel records of the New Testament related to Jesus' life and extended ministry, and that of His early disciples. There was another locale or area, every bit as physically locatable as the others. It lay just outside of the walls of Jerusalem. It was known as Gehenna, It was a physical, earthly place. Gehenna was, in fact, an incinerating garbage dump just outside the walls of Jerusalem. That's all it was in that day: A burning garbage dump. It was not all that different than a modern day city dump except that into it were thrown the bodies of animals and also the bodies of those deemed to be human refuse. In Jesus day, only that which was dead and unfeeling was burned there. There was no suffering of living things.
The word "Gehenna" is a transliteration from Hebrew into Greek of The Valley of Hinnom. To say the least, the area did not have a good reputation. There were times in Israel's history when in that valley, apostate Israelites offered up their children to the pagan god, Molech, as sacrifices burned alive on the out-stretched white-hot arms of "his" graven image. As those children were being roasted alive, the priests of Molech ritually pounded on drums to drown out the children's screams. To worship that demon god, it was required of the parents of the children that they stand motionless and without making any sound to honor Molech by their stoic silence.
How is it that Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Judea, etc., are always translated in our Bibles as such---a city, a town, a province, an area of one sort or another, but Gehenna, traditionally, is not? Why would the translators of many of our conventionally-rendered Bibles, choose to reach back into Anglo-Saxon and Proto-Germanic language-antiquity, and choose a word without any connection to that valley to translate Gehenna into English? The word of choice: "Hell." The etymology of the word traces back to around 725 A.D. and simply had to do with a place hidden from view. A young man, for instance, might take his sweetheart to "hell," for a little courting-privacy. Folks would "hell" their potatoes, i.e., put them underground. It had nothing to do with an infernal region of torturing flames.
But somewhere along the line, the pagan imaginings of a pit reserved for the damned became associated with the word, and that association was brought forward into many (well actually, I estimate, most) of our English translations of the New Testament. Anyone smell a rat? Might there have been an agenda involved that had to do with keeping people under control through fear. Well, duh, just maybe?
Any connection of what Gehenna was, and what went on there, with the nature of God's final judgment upon sinners, ought, it would seem, cause a believer in, and who has experienced, God's love and grace, to immediately and intuitively reject such a connection. But the majority of Christians suffer a disconnect from the anointing of the Holy Spirit Who imparts a discernment re: what is, and what is not, of God. Should that anointing raise a warning flag, the average believer immediately disqualifies his or her inner sense, choosing rather to let the professionals do their thinking for them. The system of man's tradition is rife with that sort of intimidating influence of the clergy.
During the times when Israel was taken into captivity, the theology of the sect of the Pharisees, particularly, suffered heathen distortion, including the belief in an infernal region of the damned, and so some Jews of Jesus day may have associated such with Gehenna, but no such truthful association existed factually. Jesus used His references to Gehenna to warn of a shameful end to a temporal, physical life lived worthlessly by the cultural standards of the day, loosely based on the Torah. Both a literal and sometimes, it seems, a figurative application with hyperbole, to this life, was what the Lord had in mind; not at all a warning of everlasting damnation in the next life.
While there is, according to St. James, a form of religion that is "pure and undefiled...," it is not completely unlike institutionalized religion, including its Christian form, by means of the hierarchy, to keep believers superstitiously dependent on what is essentially - whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or independent--a priest-oriented system of little resemblance to apostolic Christianity. Are there exceptions? Of course, but the system will bare its teeth should any of those within its walls, of an exceptional mind and ministry, threaten its authority.
For those, who in spirit, belong to, and fit well in, the system, whether priest or minister, the "church" exists mostly to provide a sense of special discipleship, and/or a platform upon which to display his or her soulish charisma. Within that structure, Christian ministry, which should be about servanthood, sinks to the level of celebrity status with all its perks. In one wing of that structure, often a preacher who is hard on sinners, and who insists passionately that "there's a hell to be shunned, and a heaven to be gained," is valued by his congregation as being heroically bold and true to the Word of God, when in fact he or she is not only in denial re: the full value of the shed blood of Christ, but goes beyond denial to being blatantly adversarial to the gospel.
But there is the matter also, of the priestly class itself suffering from the deception they propagate. At the heart of all spiritual deception lies an ignorance of God as He truly is. A situation can exist of a strange mixture, where, on one hand some measure of gospel is preached from sincere Spirit-imparted conviction and some genuine experience of the grace of Christ, while at the same time, the preacher, from out of some region of intense soul-darkness, consciously or unconsciously, seeks to find in the scriptures some objective support for imaginings held in that dark region of his psyche. Into the incorruptible Word of God, he or she, projects what even decent human sensibilities would normally abhor in a non-religious context.
As I've previously noted, the highly figurative language found often in the parables of Jesus, are exegetically distorted to support the exact opposite of what is taught with explicit exactness within the larger body of New Testament witness. The following outline of the New Testament's content-structure should be helpful in understanding the point I'm making: The main subject of the gospels is manifestation ("...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." Jn.1:14 KJV), while the Acts of the Apostles (a section of its own) tells the story of propagation and dissemination ("And the Word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied..." Acts 6:7 KJV).
When we proceed to the epistles, explanation stands out ("This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1Tim.1:15 KJV), and finally in The Book of Revelation, we have consummation ("And He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new. And He said to me, Write: for these words are true and faithful'" Rev.21:5). What is "true and faithful," is that the One upon the throne makes all things new. [Note, by personal preference I have capitalized all references to Deity]
When the message of the gospels, often in highly figurative language, is interpreted in a way violently inconsistent with the explanation found explicitly in the epistles, and in at least one boldly explicit statement in the otherwise highly figurative Book of Revelation, then we have the strange situation where the Spirit of Truth promised and given particularly (but not exclusively) to the early disciples, is not to be trusted to explain what Jesus "began both to do and to teach until the time He was taken up."
Our Lord promised, "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." (Jn.16: 13-15 KJV). So if you've been taught that everlasting torment for billions of souls is a reality, you've not been taught that by the Spirit of truth, for rather than glorifying Christ as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, such a spirit instead devalues and minimizes what God has, and will, accomplish through the death and resurrection of His Son.
With explicit exactness the epistles extoll the "the living God, who is the savior of all men...." (1Tim.4:10 KJV), and boldly declare of Christ, that ..."And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours (believer's) only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1Jn.2:2 KJV). The Book of Revelation adds the record of the emphatic testimony of Jesus as He appeared to John on the Isle of Patmos, declaring, "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev.21:5 KJV). Yet it is taught with a spirit of nothing less than violent contradiction to truth, that when a man dies, his state of spiritual death on this side of grave, becomes "eternal death" on the other side. Where, pray tell, does such a state exist when Jesus makes all things new? Will "eternal death" co-exist with all things being made new? The concept of eternal death is insanely nonsensical. Faced with the resurrection of Christ, death has no such staying power.
How, pray tell, can such a state exist when scripture informs us that "death shall be swallowed up in victory?" Not just some folk's death, but death PERIOD. Paul's words were carefully chosen through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He goes beyond death being merely done away with, to death being swallowed up. What is implied there is that death itself undergoes a divine digestive process by which it, death - yes death itself - within the body of Christ, is transformed to become life-nourishing by the victory of Christ's resurrection. Amazingly, death becomes an intrinsic element and quality of divine life.
Just as natural food, when swallowed and digested is transformed into becoming intrinsic to the natural body nourishingly, so it is likewise with the very life of God. By going into the depths of death, and out from death in and by resurrection, catalytically a special radiance of glory is drawn forth from the depths of the divine nature; and all praise to the glory of His grace, we're granted inclusion by our union with Christ. This is at the heart of Jesus saying that it was expedient for Him to go away, for if He would not go away, the Comforter, Holy Spirit, would not come. (Jn.16:7).
The coming of the Holy Spirit gives us, from Jesus as the Fountain Head, His whole inherent life to death to life again experience. We have His human experience made ours from His incarnation through death to glorification within His indwelling life. We now share in Jesus having learned obedience, and therefore being made perfect, by the things which He suffered (Heb. 5:8). That perfection is not from imperfection to perfection, but perfection in the sense of completeness, which is the sense of the Greek word. When our Lord Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having been made complete by the things which He suffered, God had His complete Man, and that Man sums up, in Himself, all mankind.
It needs to be noted, as Jonathan Mitchell reveals in his translation of the New Testament, that the Greek word translated, "suffered," in the reference above, conveys the whole of Jesus experience, not merely His suffering. Away with all that is contrary to God's salvific intention, purpose, will, and ultimately successful goal. Let there spread throughout the professing Christian world a call to (major) repentance.
