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To Hell And Back! Who Are There
"Thou
wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see
corruption."— Ps
16:10.
Although the caption of my topic has
a sensational aspect, I assure you all that it is not really so, that I shall
treat the subject most earnestly and prove every assertion most conclusively
from the Scriptures. God forbid that I should treat lightly a subject which has
caused more distress, more heartache, more sorrow of mind, than all other
subjects combined—caused these distresses to the very best among the Lord’s
followers. I care not to specially address those who are so selfish as to
regard merely themselves and their family connections, and who are quite
content that all others might suffer an eternity of torture so long as their
friends are saved from such a calamity. I would reach especially those whose
hearts and heads have been troubled almost to the extent of distraction over
this subject—those who have wept and prayed as they remembered sons and
daughters, friends and neighbors, parents and children, who died without having
accepted Jesus as their Savior, without having taken upon them the only name
given under Heaven and among men whereby we must be saved.—Ac 4:12.
I hold that it is the best of God’s people, the tenderest of heart, the most
Christlike, who have had trouble with the question of eternal torment. I know
how to sympathize with them because once I had similar distress of mind, and
like others was obliged to say, "If I believe this doctrine and meditate
upon it, it will surely make me crazy, as it has done hundreds and thousands of
others." Such loving hearts have found a palliation but not a relief, not
a satisfaction, in the thought that somehow,
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perhaps, somewhere, at some time, God’s character would be cleared of the
dreadful stain cast upon it by this doctrine, which we believed to be the
teaching of God’s Book, the Bible.
I, too, once so believed and feared, and was ashamed of my God because of the
injustice, lovelessness, devilishness implied in the theory taught me from
infancy, that God, knowing the end from the beginning, had created our race
under conditions as we see them; that He provided a great place called hell for
their torture, and created a corps of fireproof devils to attend to the matter,
and provided also fuel enough to perpetuate the torture to all eternity. I felt
thankful indeed to realize myself an object of Divine mercy and favor, but my
heart went out for the thousands of millions of human beings of civilized as
well as heathen lands who had gone down into death utterly ignorant of
"the only name given under Heaven and among men whereby we must be
saved"—"neither is there salvation in any other."
THE PASTOR’S EARLY EFFORTS
That I thoroughly believed this doctrine you may know when I tell you that at
17 years of age it was my custom to go out at night to chalk up words of
warning in conspicuous places, where working-men passing to and fro might see
them, that peradventure I might save some from the awful doom. And the while I
wondered why God, who is of infinite power, did not blazon forth some words of
warning upon the sky or cause angel trumpeters to announce positively and
forcefully the doom to which the world in general was, I supposed, hastening. I
was an admirer of the great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, and esteemed
him very highly for the honesty and candor which made his sermons so dreadfully
hot, believing that he was an exceptionally honest minister, and that others
were grossly derelict in not preaching hell strenuously, in proclaiming eternal
torment continuously.
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But I am here this afternoon, dear friends, to explain to you how in great
mercy God opened the eyes of my understanding to see that the doctrine of
eternal torment is not the teaching of the Bible, but on the contrary is a
misrepresentation and blasphemy of the great and holy name. I am here to prove
to you that the doctrine of eternal torment has come down to us from the Dark
Ages in the hymns and catechisms and creeds, and that it is contrary not only
to reason, but also to God’s Word.
Demon gods—vicious, spiteful, merciless—are known to all the heathen peoples.
The Bible alone of all religious books teaches a God of love, sympathy and
compassion, sympathetic with His creatures and desirous of rescuing them from
their fallen estate. It was during the Dark Ages when the spirit of Christ, the
spirit of love, became so nearly extinct even among Christians, that they
thought it perfectly proper and pleasing to God that they should tear one
another limb from limb on the rack, that they should burn one another at the
stake, that they should torture one another with thumb screws and fill each
other’s mouths and ears with molten lead—it was at that time and by some of our
deluded ancestors that this doctrine of eternal torment was torn from
heathendom and engrafted upon the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles.
We find indeed that the inquisitors of old justified the tortures of their
fellow creatures with the very claim that they were thus copying God, and that
their victims would receive still worse treatment when after death they should
come into the hands of the Almighty. People will copy their conceptions of the
Creator—how necessary, therefore, that we have the right conception, that we
worship a God who is greater in Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power than ourselves.
With such a terrible misconception of God the wonder is that Christianity made
any progress at all. The only offset has probably been the thought of the love
of Jesus and of His willingness and endeavor to rescue men.
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INFIDELITY FOSTERED BY HELL THEORY
Intelligent people everywhere are very generally discarding the doctrine of
eternal torment as being contrary to reason. But, alas, thinking that it is
taught in the Scriptures these same intelligent people are rejecting the Bible,
losing faith in it, drifting into unbelief in general—into Christian Science,
spiritism, theosophy, etc.
If this afternoon I shall succeed in proving to you that the Scriptures do not
teach this unreasonable theory of eternal torment, which is supposed to be
built upon its statements—if on the contrary I shall show you that the
"hell" of the Scriptures is logical and reasonable, I shall hope to
have planted the feet of some upon firmer ground, to have re-established to
some extent faith in the Bible as the Word of God and to have prepared your
minds to see that as this error is not of Scriptural foundation, so likewise
all the unreasonable teachings of the creeds of the Dark Ages are without
foundation in the Bible. I hope thus to lay a foundation for your future growth
in knowledge and in grace. I could not possibly ask for you of the Lord a
greater blessing than has already come to my own heart and life through better
knowledge of the Scriptures along these lines.
I will endeavor to give you Scriptural proofs that the hell of the Bible is not
a place of torment at all; that the word refers to the state of death, the
tomb, the grave. I shall show you that the Scriptures teach that both the good
and the bad alike go to the Biblical hell, the tomb, and that their hope of
salvation is a resurrection hope—to be delivered from the power of death by the
Redeemer in God’s due time.
THE HELL OF THE BIBLE
You are all aware that the Old Testament portion of the Bible was written in
the Hebrew language and the New Testament in the Greek. We will commence with
the Old Testament. We find that the word "hell" everywhere throughout
the Old Testament is a translation of
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the Hebrew word "sheol," which occurs altogether 66 times, and is
translated three different ways in our Common Version; 32 times grave, 31 times
hell and three times pit. It should have been translated grave or pit or tomb
in every instance. Indeed, in two instances, where it is rendered hell in the
Common Version, the marginal reading says, "Hebrew, the grave."
One of these is Jon 2:2. Jonah is represented as telling how he prayed to God
while he was in the belly of the great fish. He was buried alive, entombed. Our
Common Version reads, "Out of the belly of hell cried I"; the literal
meaning is, "Out of the grave-belly I prayed."
Adding these two instances to the last we would have grave 34 times, pit three
times and hell 29 times, or the word is erroneously rendered 29 times out of
66. I shall not weary you by giving you all of these 66 passages, nor is this
necessary; for we have a free pamphlet to which you are all welcome on request.
It takes up every text in which the word hell occurs, from Genesis to
Revelation, and every passage which in any sense of the word appears to teach
an eternity of torture. It analyzes these with their context and shows what
they do and what they do not mean. It will convince any fair-minded man who
will give it careful reading.
In passing I remark that much of the difficulty on this subject has arisen from
careless handling of the Word of God, adding to its statements in our minds if
not in our words. For instance, when we read in the Bible, "All the wicked
shall God destroy" (Ps 145:20), we unwittingly said to ourselves,
"Destroy must mean preserve, preserve in fire, preserve in torment,
preserve with devils eternally." Thus we distorted the Word of God to our
own injury as well as to the injury of others.
Similarly the word die; when we read in the Scriptures, "The soul that
sinneth it shall die" (Eze 18:20), we perverted the Word of God as we
would not think of perverting any other writings and said, "Die must here
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mean live, live in torment eternally with devils in suffering."
Similarly the word perish; on reading in the Scriptures that the "wicked
shall perish" (Ps 37:20), we turned the language upside down and said,
"Perish means preserve." Thus our confusion continued; we were
blinded by the Adversary on the lines on which he has blinded the entire
heathen world, hindering the glorious light of the goodness of God from shining
more and more into the hearts of men.—2Co 4:4.
GRAY HAIRS IN HELL
The first occurrence of the word Sheol is in connection with the patriarch
Jacob and his twelve sons. His two youngest sons, nobler than their brethren,
were most beloved by Jacob. Joseph, his favorite, clothed in his handsome coat
of many colors, was sent to his brethren, who were pasturing the sheep at a
distance from home, to take them delicacies and bring back word of their
welfare.
The brethren, moved with envy, first thought to kill him, but subsequently sold
him to the Ishmaelites, who in turn sold him to the Egyptians, in whose land
under God’s providential care he in after years became ruler next to the king.
Meantime the brethren took the peculiar coat of many colors, bedraggled it in
the blood of a goat and in the dust, and sent it home to Jacob, inquiring if he
recognized it. He answered, "Alas, it is Joseph’s coat; wild beasts have devoured
him! I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning." (Ge 37:35.) What did he
mean? Did he mean by Sheol a place of fire and torment? Did he believe that
Joseph, his best son, had gone there, and that he, Jacob, also expected to go
to that place? No, we answer. He meant that evidently Joseph was dead, and that
he would mourn for his favorite son the remainder of his life, until he also
should go into the state of death, into Sheol, into hell.
The second occurrence of the word is a little further on in the same narrative.
The brethren had been to Egypt
to buy corn, because of famine in Canaan. It
was
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necessary that they should go for more, but they explained to Jacob that the
Governor, whom they knew not was Joseph, had required of them that if they came
again they must bring with them Benjamin, their brother, the one whom Jacob now
specially loved. Jacob protested, but finding that there was no escape he
finally told them to take Benjamin, but declared also that if they did not bring
the lad back safe they would bring down his own gray hairs in sorrow to the
grave, Sheol. Jacob evidently meant not that he would go to a place of eternal
torment if Benjamin did not return, but that a failure to bring Benjamin back
would hasten his death through sorrow. Does any sane person have any doubt as
to the meaning of Sheol in these instances, the first two occurrences in the
Bible? No! you have no doubt, nor reason for any. And the word has the same
meaning exactly in its every occurrence throughout the Scriptures, as you will
see when you read carefully our free pamphlet.
HELL IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE
Just a word in defence of the translators of our Common Version English Bible.
All living languages are subject to variation in meaning, and this seems to
have been particularly true of the English. To illustrate, the word hell at one
time meant the grave in the English language. But gradually this meaning has
been dropped out of the word, until now it is never used in ordinary
conversation. As illustrations of its use in bygone times we find in ancient
English literature reference to the helling of a house, meaning not the burning
of the house nor the torturing of it, but the thatching of it. Similarly we
read of the farmer helling his potatoes, the meaning of the expression being
not the roasting of potatoes nor the torturing of them, but the putting of them
into a pit for preservation from the frosts, etc., until needed.
As for the translators of the Revised Version they seem to have been too honest
to use the word hell as a translation for Sheol and Hades, but not honest
enough to
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tell the people the truth on the subject. Hence you will find that in the
Revised Version no translation at all is given, but the Hebrew word Sheol in the
Old Testament and the Greek word Hades in the New Testament are used instead of
the word hell when grave is not used. The translators evidently anticipated
what occurred; namely, that the public, knowing nothing about Greek and Hebrew,
would esteem this as an attempt to do away with hell, whereas the real animus
of the translators was to perpetuate it. The translators knew that the public
would say that hell was just as hot and just as real, although now called Sheol
and Hades. They knew that the public would never suspect that the wool was
being pulled over the eyes of their understanding to hinder them from seeing
the plain teaching of God’s Word, that Sheol means the grave or tomb or death
state—nothing more, nothing less.
PRAYING TO GO TO HELL
Job, one of the most prominent characters of the Old Testament, one especially
mentioned as a favorite with God, made a most eloquent prayer that he might go
to hell, to Sheol, to the tomb. And no wonder, poor man; for surely in his case
was fulfilled the statement, "Many are the afflictions of the
righteous!" (Ps 34:19.) Unwilling to suicide, he craved relief from his
sorrows and troubles in death. Refresh your memory respecting his troubles. The
Almighty, while approving him, permitted the Adversary to vex him sorely, to
the extent of taking away every earthly possession except the mere thread of
life itself. His children, gathered for a birthday party, were killed by a
cyclone; later his flocks and herds and property in general were destroyed.
Finally his health gave way, and he broke out in boils from head to foot.—Job
1:6-22.
To add to his sorrows his friends and neighbors, instead of consoling him,
turned against him and declared that he had been acting the part of a
hypocrite, and that
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God was now exposing him—showing His disapproval.
In vain did Job protest his innocence and appeal to the Lord, until
subsequently the Lord gave His verdict in favor of Job against the friends. But
as though all these trials and difficulties were not enough for the poor man,
to cap the climax his wife exclaimed, "You are accursed of God and should
die!" Then poor Job poured forth his prayer for death, saying: "Oh,
that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol until Thy wrath be past!"—Job 14:13.
Does anyone of sane mind think that poor Job, after passing through all these
afflictions, was in these words praying to God to cast him into a place of
eternal torment, to be the sport of devils? No; such a supposition would be
irrational. Very evidently Job meant that, if God were willing, he would be
glad to die, to go into Sheol, the tomb, the state of death.
SHEOL NOT DESIRABLE FOREVER
But Job had a hope for the future—he was not desirous of being annihilated;
hence his prayer is, "Oh, that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol [hell, the
tomb] until Thy wrath be past." The "wrath" here mentioned is
elsewhere called the "curse." Back in Eden, when our first parents were perfect, by
disobedience they brought upon themselves the Divine sentence of
"curse" or "wrath"—the death sentence, which includes all
mental, moral and physical degeneracy known to our race, and which has been
afflicting us as a whole for now 6,000 years. Job was looking beyond the period
of the permission of this "curse" or "wrath" to a time
future, when the "curse" would be removed, and instead of it a
"blessing" would come to every member of the race, himself included.
As a Prophet he recorded his hope of a coming Redeemer: "I know that my
Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the
earth."
Through this Redeemer’s work he realized that the "curse" would be
abolished, and his prayer to be hid in
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Sheol, the grave, the tomb, was merely until the "curse" the
wrath" would be over—until the great blessing time, the Millennial Reign,
should begin. His prayer continuing shows his hope of a resurrection,
"that Thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me." Then
particularly referring to the resurrection, he says, "Thou shalt call and
I will answer Thee, for Thou wilt have regard unto the work of Thy
hands."—Job 14:15.
We remember also the Prophet David’s prayer for deliverance from death. He
said, "Oh, save me for Thy mercies’ sake. For in death there is no
remembrance of Thee; in Sheol [hell, the tomb] who shall give Thee
thanks?" (Ps 6:4,5.)
We remember the good King Hezekiah also, whose life was spared 15 years in
answer to prayer. In thanking the Lord for this he said, "Death cannot
celebrate Thee; Sheol [the tomb] cannot praise Thee."—Isa 38:18.
QUOTE THE ENTIRE PROVERB
One of Solomon’s inspired proverbs much quoted is, "Do with thy might
what thy hand findeth to do." But very rarely do we ever hear the
remainder of the quotation, namely, "because there is neither wisdom nor
knowledge nor device in Sheol [the grave] whither thou goest."
(Ec 9:10.) How reasonable is this statement, rightly understood—there is no
wisdom nor knowledge nor work in the hell to which the good and the bad, all
mankind, have been going for the past six thousand years! The dead are really
dead, extinct, except as God has provided for them a resurrection from the
dead, a reawakening to sentient being. The very moment of their awakening will
seem to each to be the next moment to the one in which he died; for there is no
wisdom or knowledge in the tomb, in Sheol, in hell. How wonderful the goodness
and mercy of God will appear to the great mass of our race when they are
awakened from the sleep of death and learn for the first time of the goodness
of God, that
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instead of having provided devils and torture, He has provided through His Son
an opening of the prison doors of the tomb and a setting at liberty of the
captives of death, providing also for their future uplift out of sin and
degradation under the favorable conditions of the Millennial Kingdom of God’s
dear Son.
SHEOL IS IN THE GREEK HADES
We now call your attention to the fact that the word Sheol in the Old
Testament, which we have shown means merely tomb, the death state, is the exact
equivalent of the word Hades in the New Testament Greek, which likewise means
the tomb, the state of death. For instance, in Psalm 16:10 we read, "Thou
wilt not leave my soul in Sheol" (hell, the tomb), and we find St. Peter
quoting this on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:27-31), "Thou wilt not leave My
soul in Hades," hell, the grave. St. Peter proceeds to explain that David
spoke this not respecting his own soul, but the soul of Jesus, and thus
foretold our Lord’s resurrection from the dead on the third day.
How simple, how plain the entire matter is from this the Scriptural standpoint!
Take another illustration: the prophet Hosea declares, "I will ransom them
from the power of Sheol [the grave, hell], I will redeem them from death: O
Death where is thy sting? O Sheol [grave, hell], I will be thy
destruction." The Apostle Paul quotes this passage in his great discourse
on the resurrection, saying, "O Death where is thy sting? O Hades [grave],
where is thy victory?" (1Co 15:55.) What could be simpler, plainer?
All that we need is to get the smoke of the Dark Ages out of the eyes of our
understanding, and to allow the true light from the inspired Word of God to
speak to us plainly and be its own interpreter.
See the dead risen from land and
from ocean; Praise to Jehovah ascending on High; Fall’n are the engines of war
and commotion; Shouts of salvation are rending the sky.
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