preview

Definition Essay On Hell

Decent Essays
Open Document

In both the old times and modern time of Christianity, one of the main controversial topics has surrounded one single word. Hell. Some people hear it and thing noting of it. Others shutter at the name. But everyone has questions about it, whether hell is real or a fable, eternal or temporary, physical or spiritual. Being in the Baptist community since birth, I have believed in a hell since I can remember because “to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices.” (Ross Douthat). My definition of hell comes straight from the Bible. That there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mathew 13:42) and that God will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil …show more content…

Some of these words include the following: Hades (Greek), Tartarus (Greek), Gehenna (Greek), and Sheol (Hebrew). Hades, literally translated “punishment” was used in Matthew 11 times. In Mathew Jesus consistently refers Hades as “the place of punishment and suffering prepared for the devil and his angles as well as for those that reject God” (J. Lunde 310-311). Another word used for hades "κόλασις" (kolasis) is used in Mathew 25:46 with the word eternal. This means that hell is everlasting, not temporary where God’s love doesn’t only punish “the wicked to a certain period of time” (Grudem 1151). “Hell is an eternal place of conscious torment and separation from God, whereby God pours out His justifiable wrath on Satan, his demons and unrepentant sinners” (Jeff Cook). The next word, Tartarus, which is translated to “the pit,” is used in 2 Peter 2:4 when God did not spare his angels when they sinned but “cast them into hell (Tartarus).” One last Greek word Gehenna means the Valley of Hinnom. In the Old Testament, the Valley of Hinnom was a place where the tribe of Judah would take their children and offer them as a sacrifice to the Canaanite god Molech, the god of fire. Consequently, Jesus refers to it as an actual place to get this point across: “Hell is a place of burning fire” (Grenz 643). In Hebrew the one word that is used consistently is Sheol. This also can mean “the pit” or “hell itself.” This is one of the few words about hell in the Old Testament. It is basically the same thing as Hades. All these terms point toward Hell being a place of utter destruction no matter what word you look for and nothing can dispute that hell is no place to be condemned

Get Access
Related
Get Access