The Rich Man and Lazarus

Gardening has become one of my favorite pastimes. For years, I dreamed of growing peaches and grapes and of harvesting all kinds of garden delights. A few years ago, I searched catalogs and the Internet for seeds that would produce the premium in flavor and yield. With some good soil preparation, irrigation, and persistent labor, my dream began to come to fruit. I’ve really enjoyed harvesting huge, delicious honeydew melons, amazingly prolific Yard long beans, Burmese okra, and super tasting Rosa Bianca eggplant. I must also mention the sweet, Strawberry watermelons and several varieties of blueberries. A neighbor showed me how to graft paper-shell pecan wood onto my wild native pecan trees, and seven of the grafts were successful — how exciting!

Jesus often used lessons from gardening as He taught the people in parables two thousand years ago. I receive practical help from reading and meditating on those parables. I can see the lessons as I prepare the soil, plant the seeds, fertilize, weed, mulch, water, fight pests, and then harvest. For example, an activity as basic as weeding a garden illustrates that it is vital to remove spiritually harmful practices from our lives if we expect to reap a sterling character. Just as the weeds choke out the good crops in the garden, stealing nutrients from the soil and limiting the size and abundance of the harvest, “weeds” in our lifestyle practices stunt our character harvest — one simple observation among countless possibilities.

A parable is a brief story teaching some moral lesson or truth. Some parables are made-up fables and others are drawn from real-life events or from nature. Some parables contain hyperbole for dramatic effect. The parable of the trees electing a king in Judges 9 is an example of a made-up fable. We will look at that parable shortly.

The interesting parable of the farmer who went out to plant in Luke 8:5-15, is an example of a real-life type of parable using nature. Some parables contain partly real-life material and partly hyperbole or other made-up material. Parables were one of Jesus’ favorite vehicles for conveying moral lessons.

“All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying: I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.”(Matthew 13:34-35 NKJV)

In His parable teaching, Jesus used common things from everyday life as allegories of spiritual realities. These familiar things then connected with spiritual lessons in the minds of the hearers. They remembered the spiritual lessons whenever they dealt with the every-day things He had mentioned.

Another reason Jesus taught with parables was to help us think for ourselves. He wants us to put forth effort to learn about the principles of His kingdom.

Jesus refers to His followers as “the salt of the earth” and said of Himself, “ I am the Door.” In Rev. 3:16, He says to His end-time church that unless you repent of your“lukewarm” condition (half-heartedness)“I will spew you out of my mouth.” Of course, professed Christians are not literally in Jesus mouth, but only figuratively, in the sense that He calls them His own. But, if they persist in their “lukewarm” condition, He literally disavows them. He symbolically spews them out of His mouth,as one would spit out nauseatingly tepid water on a hot summer day.

In Judges 9:8-15, we find a curious parable in which trees spoke to one another, carrying on quite a lengthy conversation. Of course, God never intended anyone to take this highly figurative parable as an instance where trees actually spoke to one another. It was originally presented to a specific group of people as an allegorical reprimand and prophecy and was not understood by the original hearers as a literal communication between trees. They knew that trees obviously cannot think and talk.

“The trees went forth [on a time] to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, [and] reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, [and] reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, [and] reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, [then] come [and] put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.” (Judges 9:8-15)

If you read all of Judges 8 and 9, you will see clearly that the parable was an allegorical illustration of real-world events involving conspiracy, betrayal and ultimate justice. No one who heard the parable when it was given believed that trees literally talked. But they did get the message intended by the speaker. As we proceed, we will see that the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus likewise is an allegory not intended to be understood as literal conditions in hell. Before this chapter is over, we will get the important message Jesus intended for us when He inspired Luke to record the thought-provoking parable.

In John 6:47-68, Jesus tells his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Some of His disciples responded, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” Of course, Jesus wasn’t teaching cannibalism and He wasn’t teaching Transubstantiation either. So what did He mean?

By beholding Christ’s love, by dwelling upon it, by drinking it in, we become partakers of His nature. What food is to the body, Christ is to the soul. Food does us no good unless we eat. Likewise, if we want spiritual nourishment and growth we must feed upon Christ by studying the Scriptures, meditating upon His character, and communing with Him in prayer, so that His life becomes spiritual food for our life. This is what it means to eat His flesh and drink His blood.

Jesus used the shock-effect of highly figurative language to teach the vital lesson that we must become intimately associated with Him if we are to be successful in the Christian life. The same alarm-producing principle applies to the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus.

The Rich Man and Lazarus is the last in a series of five message-packed parables that Jesus told right in a row, parable after parable. If you pick up your Bible and start reading at the beginning of Luke chapter 15, you can read all five parables in sequence. These are the parables of The Lost Sheep,The Lost Coin,The Prodigal Son,The Unjust Steward,and The Rich Man and Lazarus. While each parable carries an underlying message about God’s love, the last three have a special identifying mark of similarity. All of the last three parables have opening lines that are noticeably alike. The Prodigal Son begins, “A certain rich man had two sons.” The Unjust Steward begins, “There was a certain rich man.” The Rich Man and Lazarus begins with exactly the same words: “There was a certain rich man.” Let’s read the parable now.

“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that [would come] from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” Luke 16:19-31

Jesus told this ominous parable to the proud religious leaders. His condemnation of their insensitivity and arrogance was cloaked in figurative language. If we literalize the allegorical language, we force the parable to contradict hundreds of other passages in the Bible. But the Bible never contradicts itself. Therefore, we can be confident that scrutiny, along with a prayerful spirit, will clear up any misinterpretation.

After reading the parable, you may be wondering if Jesus made it up from real-life events or from fictitious fable-types of material. In fact, the entire parable is a fictitious fable, although it is plausible that real-life discussions between redeemed people on the walls of New Jerusalem and damned people in hell could take place on the “only day” in history when heaven and hell will come face-to-face.

Some aspects of the parable fall into the realm of hyperbole for dramatic effect. An obvious example is when the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and touch it to the rich man’s tongue in order to cool him in the midst of the flames of Hades. Aahhh, now that will surely bring some relief won’t it? Of course not! Does any reasonable person actually believe that a drop of water placed on the tip of someone’s tongue could actually bring relief in the midst of flames? Who, while writhing in flames, would even bother to make such a request? A truckload of water maybe — but not a drop on the tip of a finger! This is a brilliant example of how Jesus often used drama and hyperbole for effect in His parables.

The Bible never contradicts itself, therefore, when properly understood, the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus will not be seen to contradict the many plain statements of Scripture that the dead are asleep and cannot possibly talk with one another any more than trees can.

The only basis upon which we could reasonably interpret the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus as a literal description of a disembodied soul in heaven having a conversation with a disembodied soul in hell would be if the preponderance of evidence throughout Scripture agrees with such an understanding. Out of the literally hundreds of statements in Scripture regarding heaven, hell, and the mental state of humans in death, there are only a tiny few that might, upon a superficial glance, appear to contradict the vast majority. And each of those, upon closer investigation, is proved not to contradict the truth that “the dead know nothing.”(Ecclesiastes 9:5 NKJV)

Scripture overwhelmingly teaches that hell is a future event and that dead people are currently asleep awaiting the resurrection. How then does this image-laden parable harmonize with the rest of Scripture? The parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus contains several important elements that might elude our notice upon first reading. We will address each issue, comparing Scripture with Scripture, and let the clear logic of the Word sweep away any misconceptions.

(1) First of all, we should recognize that Jesus’ purpose in presenting this hyperbole-laced parable was not to make an “orthodox” theological dissertation on heaven and hell, any more than Judges 9 is a theological dissertation on the ability of trees to talk. If we honestly want to understand the meaning of the parable, we must begin by noting the real points that Jesus is trying to make.

He presented this parable in order to make it clear that people who are insensitive to the suffering of others will not enter heaven. That point alone gives strong evidence that Jesus never intended this parable to prove the superstitious dogma of eternal suffering.

The parable also teaches that wealth, social position, and church connections are not evidence of one’s right standing with God. The Jews mistakenly believed “that being rich was a sure sign of God’s favor and blessings. To correct these views, Jesus pictured a rich Jew who goes to hell!”¹The Jews “also believed that being poor was evidence of God’s curse. So Jesus pictures a poor beggar who goes to heaven!”²

The parable teaches that there is no second chance purgatory beyond the grave — destiny is determined in the probationary period of this life!

Verse 22, which mentions Lazarus’ death, does not explicitly state that the angels carried him to heaven at the very moment he died. It merely states the two facts of death and eventual trip to heaven, without laying out a clear time frame. Nevertheless, many of those who were listening to Christ’s words held the notion of a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection. He was aware of their confused ideas, but He framed His parable in language that would convey the point He wanted to make about selfishness and salvation without directly addressing their preconceived opinions on the state of the dead. Attacking false notions about the state of man in death was not the battle of His choosing for the particular occasion of this parable.

In this parable, He held up before His hearers a mirror in which they might see themselves in their true relation to God. He wanted them to realize that material wealth does not prove spiritual favor. All that anyone has belongs to him only as a loan from God. A misuse of material blessings places the wealthy individual below the poorest and most afflicted person who loves and trusts in God.

The rich man thought that his connection with Israel as a descendant of Abraham would save him. Though wealthy by the world’s standard, he was so spiritually poverty-stricken, that he put Abraham where God should have been, praying to Abraham rather than to God.

Jesus knew that Abraham was not yet in heaven at the time He gave this parable. In fact, according to Scripture, Abraham still hasn’t arrived in heaven and won’t be transported there until resurrected at the second coming of Christ. Therefore, Jesus’ obviously did not intend anyone to understand this parable as a description of literal conditions in heaven and hell at the time of Lazarus’ and the rich man’s death. (Point #7 addresses this issue in more detail.)

Many people today, like the rich man, think that their connection with a church will save them. Countless professing believers march to their graves vainly clinging to just such sentimental and presumptuous notions. When God’s voice awakens such a person from the dead, he will come from the grave with the same attitude and interests that he cherished when living. It will then be too late to change his unfit character. The rich man claimed to be a son of Abraham, but he was separated from Abraham by an impassable gulf — a character wrongly developed. From a spiritual perspective, the “great gulf fixed” between him and Abraham was the gulf of disobedience.

(2) Jesus doesnotsay anywhere in this parable that He is referring to disembodied “immortal souls.” Jesus describes the rich man with very real bodily parts including “eyes” and a “tongue” with which he requested that Lazarus “dip the tip of his finger in water.” Disembodied souls, even were they to exist, wouldn’t have eyes, tongues, and fingers. Therefore, this cannot be a description of Lazarus’ and the rich man’s supposedly disembodied souls respectively going to heaven and the flames of hell immediately at death. Revelation 20:5-14 teaches that all of the actors on the stage will arrive in hell together and will have real, tangible bodies; they will “stand before God” bodily.

(3) Jesus does not say anywhere in this parable that the torments of hell have already begun. The Apostle Paul speaks of “the wrath to come.” He obviously places the wrath of hell in the future; it is yet “to come.”(1^st Thessalonians 1:10b) According to Scripture, the fires of hell will be kindled upon the earth at the future appointed time.

“The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”(2^ndPeter 3:10b)

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” (Revelation 20:9)

“Then shall ye [Jesus]return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”(Malachi 3:18; 4:1)

Based on the time frame evidence you just read, we must conclude that the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus does not teach that the fires of hell are already burning in some unearthly dimension somewhere. Those fires are yet future.

Jesus does not say anywhere in the parable that the torments of the wicked in hell will never end. In fact, in another parable found in Luke 12:39-48, He makes it clear that some lost people will be “beaten with many [stripes],” while others will be “beaten with few [stripes].” In other words, some lost people will suffer longer than others before their torment ends. It would not make sense to say that a person suffering torments for endless eons of time is being beaten with only a few stripes. It would be impossible for someone being beaten with endless stripes to be beaten with few stripes! This parable cannot be used to prove that hell’s torments will never end.

The Bible describes only one occasion in which resurrected heavenly people might be able to communicate with lost people suffering the torments of hell. That scene is depicted in Revelation 20:9. New Jerusalem referred to as “the beloved city” in that passage has come down from heaven and is resting upon the earth. The world-wide battle of “Armageddon,” which paused when the unrepentant multitudes were killed at the second coming, will then resume as the lost people of all the ages are raised back to life and surround “the camp of the saints.”

The Battle of “Armageddon” will be a global battle, primarily spiritual, and supernatural in nature. Its description commences at Revelation 16:16 and carries through Revelation 19:21. As we’ve already noted, the earth-shattering cataclysm associated with the second coming of Christ will kill all of the unrepentant people living on earth at that time. Their interim death will cause a temporary intermission in the battle. (See Revelation 19:21) God’s people will escape the destruction as they are “caught up together . . . in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” (1^stThessalonians 4:17)

The battle will recommence 1,000 years later when all the unrepentant from all history are resurrected. That huge multitude will surround the city. This explanation helps us to understand why the “New Jerusalem,” “the beloved city,” is also called a “camp” in this passage. The word camp is military imagery. The city descends from heaven walled and gated (prepared for battle) just like a military encampment.

As the resurrected unrepentant people of the ages prepare to attack “the beloved city” and its inhabitants, God intervenes. Then their indescribable mental anguish begins to engulf them, as they come to the full gut-wrenching realization of their hopelessly lost condition. The tremendous terrors of that day will be far worse than any horror most of us have ever seen or experienced!

Oh my friend, God permitted Satan to brutalize me with a string of disastrous losses similar to the afflictions of the Old Testament character Job. That awful experience gave me a taste of hell’s hopelessness and despair, a feeling of total abandonment by God. Believe me, hell is not a place you want to go to. Oh no, don’t go there! Don’t rationalize and excuse sin in your life, not even on so-called “little” things. Remember, the simple act of a man and woman sticking something in their mouths that didn’t belong there is what got us into all the troubles of this destabilized dying world. Turn from any idols in your life and make a complete surrender to God while your probationary time is still open.

It is possible that redeemed people watching the surreal judgment scene from top of New Jerusalem’s walls will have some final communication with lost people who are beginning to suffer the awful torments of hell. Any communication that might occur, can only be for a limited period of time because eventually the people in hell’s flames will be burned up completely and will become ashes upon the earth. (See Malachi 4:1-3)

Many of the resurrected unsaved people may not understand that probation has already closed for all humankind, including their siblings. If they died ignorant of what the Bible teaches on these subjects they will arise with the same misconceptions! Therefore, conversations between lost persons and saved persons, similar to that described in Jesus’ parable, could conceivably take place. If conversations between the lost and the saved do occur, we must not forget that both the lost and redeemed will possess resurrected, functioning bodies and will not be bodiless ghosts. The redeemed will have new, glorified bodies while the lost will be raised with sin-corrupted bodies so they can “stand before God” for judgment. (Revelation 20:12; See also 1^stCorinthians 42-58)

As already noted, the scene described in Revelation 20 indicates that heaven and hell will come face-to-face for a brief period on this earth, as the wicked receive their final judgment. Nevertheless, there will be a “great gulf fixed” between the two so that the damned will not be able to pass to the place of the saved nor will the saved pass to the place of the damned. (Luke 16:26; see also Luke 13:28) Surely, this event will not be a pleasant experience for either the saved or the lost. Jesus describes the damned as “wailing and gnashing [their]teeth.” What a horrible scene of wailing for all that they have lost, and insane gnashing with jealous rage at Jesus and the glorified redeemed. Jesus places the awful wailing and gnashing scene at the end of the world and not in some currently ongoing torture chamber.

“So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”(Matthew 13:49, 50)

After due process, God will bring that judgment scene of wailing and gnashing to a conclusion. Justice will be fully satisfied and God’s merciful heart will be vindicated. “Mercy and truth are met together; justice and peace have kissed [each other].”(Psalm 85:10 margin)

The last dreadfully hideous shriek of Satan abruptly stops and he finally sinks into eternal oblivion. Suddenly, there will be wonderful peace and quiet upon the earth. In the most surreal scene in the history of the universe, a vast boiling ocean of molten elements will fully engulf planet earth — save only the specially protected city and its precious “Jewels.”(See Malachi 3:17) In process of time, the fires go out. That incredible scene of quiet after the fires of hell go out is described in Isaiah 14:7: “The whole earth is at rest, [and] is quiet: they [the redeemed standing on the walls of the city]break forth into singing.”

We must conclude that the peace and quiet of heaven are not being disturbed by any weeping, wailing, teeth-gnashing people suffering unending torments for all eternity in an adjoining hell.

“Abraham’s bosom” is a euphemism for Paradise including “heaven”, the promised “new earth” and “new Jerusalem” mentioned in Revelation 21. All believers are children of Abraham by spiritual adoption. “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” “And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”(Galatians 3:7, 29) Therefore, it is not necessary for Abraham to be literally in heaven at the present time in order for heaven to be “Abraham’s bosom.”

Abraham was not even in heaven at the time Jesus spoke the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus, and he will not go to heaven until he is resurrected from the dust at the second coming of Jesus. According to Hebrews 11:10, Abraham “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” That city is the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 20 and 21. Hebrews 11:13 goes on to say that Abraham died “not having received the promises.” In fact, chapter 11 concludes by affirming that all of the dead saints, including Abraham,“did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect without us.”(verses 39, 40) That is the testimony of the New Testament book of Hebrews, which was not written until several decades after Jesus spoke His parable. When do believers receive their reward? According to Jesus,

“you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:14b NKJV)

“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.”(Matthew 16:27)

“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.”(Hebrews 10:35-37)

“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward [is] with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”(Revelation 22:12)

Jesus made it plain again in His last message to us before His crucifixion: “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also.”(John 14:3b) These texts prove that no one goes to his/her reward at death. We must not ignore these unmistakably clear teachings of the Bible in order to cling to medieval superstitions. If believers go straight to be with Jesus at the moment of death, why would He promise to come and get them so they can be with Him? Such a notion, if it were true, would clearly contradict His last promise. But of course, such notions are not true. We will go to be with Jesus at His second coming.

Many theologians use the parable of The Rich Man and Lazerus to “prove” that the redeemed in heaven will observe the sufferings of the damned in hell for all eternity. This unbiblical teaching became deeply entrenched in Roman Catholic theology during medieval times especially through the writings of men like Peter Lombard(ca. 1100-1160).

Of the writers of the medieval period, certainly one of the two or three most eminent was Peter Lombard, whose “Sentences” . . . were for a long time the basis of all theological literature in Europe. More than four thousand theologians are said to have written commentaries upon them — among others, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventura, and St. Thomas Aquinas. . . . He [Peter Lombard] concludes his great work by this most impressive passage. “In the last place we must enquire whether the sight of the punishment of the condemned will impair the glory of the blest, or whether it will augment their beatitude. . . . Although their own joys might suffice to the just, yet to their greater glory they will see the pains of the evil, which by grace they have escaped. . . . The elect will go forth . . . to behold the torture of the impious, and as they see them they will not grieve. Their minds will be sated with joy as they gaze on the unspeakable anguish of the impious.”³

But, we ask, how could a loving God and His redeemed family be truly happy with such an arrangement? Surely, only Satan and his most sadistic followers could actually enjoy eternity in heaven if hell is adjoining so closely that the heavenly dwellers can hear the shrieks, moans, and pitiful pleas of the damned as they writhe in agony for all eternity without end. A nineteenth-century proponent of eternal torment describes hell with the following words:

Look into this room. What a dreadful place it is! . . . . The floor is like a thick sheet of red hot iron. See, on the middle of that red hot floor stands a girl. She looks about sixteen years old. . . . Her bare feet stand on the red hot burning floor. The door of this room has never been opened. . . . Now she sees that the door is opening. She speaks! She says; ‘I have been standing with my bare feet on this red hot floor for years. . . . ‘Look’ she says, ‘at my burnt and bleeding feet. . . . Let me go off this burning floor.’ . . . The devil answers her question: . . . ‘No, not for one single moment during the never ending eternity of years shall you ever leave this red hot floor!’ ‘Is it so?’ the girl says with a sigh, that seems to break her heart. . . . Oh, that you could hear the horrible, the fearful scream of that girl when she saw the door shutting, never to be opened anymore.⁴

The same theologian goes on to describe a little child’s never-ending agony in the fires of hell:

The little child is in the red hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats it’s head against the roof of the oven. It stamps it’s little feet on the floor. God was very good to this little child.⁵

Please consider, dear friend, if Jesus intended His parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus to be representative of actual interactive relations between people in heaven and people in hell for all eternity, heaven itself will be a heart-rending hell for those who, in this life, once loved that little girl we just read about. Based on such non-Biblical teachings heaven will be a place where that terrified girl’s saved mother, if she is saved, will be forced forever to listen to her lost little daughter’s fearful cries, weeping and wailing, and pleas for mercy.

Another point to consider here is that the devil is not in charge of hell — God is! Jesus made that point abundantly clear when He said “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”(Matthew 10:28) God will light the fires of hell; He will do the killing. He will kill more than the organic body; He will utterly kill the whole soul including the personality. “Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”(Romans 12:19)

Many traditional myths about hell teach that the demons are already in hell. However, the Bible never says any such thing. In fact, on one occasion when Jesus confronted a group of demons who had been controlling two madmen, the troubled demons responded with a question: “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29b NKJV) The devil knows that he only has “a short time” before the fires of hell are lit, therefore he and his demonic host “tremble” with foreboding of their future punishment. (James 2:19; Revelation 12:12) The devil will not be meting out punishments in the fires of hell — he will be receiving it! God is the Judge and the executioner; therefore, it is God that we need to have a healthy fear of.

Many Protestant preachers have also made-up elaborate fictitious descriptions of hell’s supposedly eternal terrors in an overwrought attempt to convince sinners to join the church. The renowned eighteenth-century American Protestant minister Jonathan Edwards presented the following description of hell’s never-ending sufferings.

The soul in hell . . . will never be annihilated. . . . Its being and perception will never be abolished. . . . To help our conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat . . . where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a bright coal of fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! . . . And how much greater would be the effect if you knew you must endure it for a whole year, and how vastly greater still, if you knew that you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! . . . That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered! But your torment in hell will be immeasurably greater than this illustration represents. How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable must the sinking of the soul be in such a case.

Edwards certainly was zealous, but the detailed descriptions of hell’s torments he wrote and preached about are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible — absolutely nowhere! Such and similar made-up descriptions however, have been presented in pagan literature for thousands of years.

Dear friend, what do such unbiblical teachings say about the heart and character of God? Christians and agnostics alike are outraged and sickened by the horrible tortures Al Quaida and other Muslim terrorists perpetrate, and yet none of those heartless fanatics has ever tormented any soul as viciously or for as long as some Christian ministers claim the Creator-God does. Truly, what fantastic mental gymnastics professing Christians must perform in order to teach that God is love while also teaching that He torments His wayward children in the most horrible manner imaginable for never ending ages and without any hope of their horrendous suffering simply being brought to a permanent end in a final, irrevocable, “second death.” (See Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8)

What kind of a father would gruesomely torture his disobedient children for all eternity without end? Even if we lay God’s mercy aside and operate on the principle of justice alone, eternal torment for the sins of a brief earthly life would be a miscarriage of justice. The punishment must fit the crime in order for justice to be properly served.

Do people who are terrorized into professing Christ ever experience true heart conversion? Horrific descriptions of never-ending torment have caused multitudes to hate God. Many agnostics assume that the Bible teaches eternal torment when in fact it does not contain any such hideous teachings. Pagan-influenced theologians made up these terroristic depictions of hell and passed them from one generation of ministers to another through seminary classrooms and tradition-based creeds. This nasty fly in the Gospel Ointment slanders the name of God.

Satan, the cruel tormentor paints a vivid self-portrait and palms it off as the character of God. How is it possible that Christian ministers parade this ugly portrait of superstition and terror? How can they conscientiously proclaim the awful heresy that the God of love perpetuates sin and suffering for all eternity?

It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil which has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment. The religion of the Bible, full of love and goodness, and abounding in compassion, is darkened by superstition and clothed with terror. When we consider in what false colors Satan has painted the character of God, can we wonder that our merciful Creator is feared, dreaded, and even hated? The appalling views of God which have spread over the world from the teachings of the pulpit have made thousands, yes, millions, of skeptics and infidels. That ministers of Christ should have accepted this heresy and proclaimed it from the sacred desk is indeed a mystery.⁶

Pagan and Muslim Descriptions of Hell

Do traditionalist theologians and preachers think that God’s vocabulary is so paltry and His creative mind so puny that He simply could not conjure up language gruesome and frightening enough to intimidate sinners to join the church? Surely they must believe this; otherwise, why should they feel the need to embellish His simple, straightforward language with horrible descriptions that He never saw fit to place in Scripture? These preachers are “pulpit terrorists.”

With their gruesome made-up descriptions of never-ending torments in hell, many Christian teachers find themselves sounding very much like equally imaginative pagan and Muslim teachers. The traditions of Muslim sects and numerous pagan religions describing the never-ending torments of the damned certainly is not inspired by the God of the Bible.

The United States is currently at war with terrorists who delight in drilling holes in the heads of their victims or sawing off their heads with a slow, dull knife. Muslim terrorists deliberately blow the arms and legs off little boys playing soccer or little girls playing hopscotch in the street. “After all,” they must reason, “these are the children of infidels and worthy of the never-ending horrors of hell. So why not go ahead and begin their torments now?”

Those cruel terrorists are reasoning from their skewed concept of God. Their picture of God is disturbingly similar to that which inspired the church-dominated monarchs of Dark Ages Europe to bore the tongues of “heretics” through with red-hot irons, or quarter their bodies and hang the rotting quarters above the gates of their cities. Popes and monarchs also used many other gruesome and horrible tools of torment. The detailed descriptions of these awful instruments of torture would fit perfectly in many a traditionalist preacher’s Sunday morning description of God’s structure of hell. I know that God is not in charge of their hell even if they claim He is. Traditionalist descriptions of hell are obviously inspired by the same sadistic mind that inspires Pagan and Muslim descriptions of hell. It is Satan and not God who invented the hell of the traditionalist Christian theologians. The M.O. (modus operandi) is unmistakable. God and Satan have absolutely nothing in common. That Fact alone ought to convince us to reject the traditionalist-Muslim-pagan teaching of universal soul immortality and eternal torment.

My heart seeks the kindhearted God of love and mercy. He is my Father. How about you? What kind of God does your heart long to be close to?

The horrendous instruments of torture in the pagan and Muslim depictions of hell are sometimes different from the horrific instruments in the Christian traditionalist’s depiction, but the general nature and excruciating sufferings these two groups describe are virtually identical, and therefore must be inspired by the same source. Edward Fudge suggests (with tongue in cheek) that perhaps Christians might borrow some descriptive ideas from the pagans. In fact, that is exactly where many of the “Christian” concepts of hell originally came from.

For conjuring thoughts of actual pain, one could borrow imagery from certain Chinese Buddhists. There devils in human form pull out slanderers’ tongues with red hot wires, pour molten lead down liar’s throats, and grind, pound, press and screw the damned with every torture device invented by depraved mankind.

If one wishes to repulse his hearers, he might use certain Hindu writings which present ‘worlds of nauseating disgusts, of loathsome agonies, of intolerable terrors.’ There some are hanged by their tongues to be eaten or whipped by fiery poisonous snakes; others must swallow bowls of gore, hair and corruption which are refilled as soon as they are emptied; others are packed tightly in red-hot chests and laid in furnaces forever. The traditions of Islam also abound in vivid and copious descriptions of torment designed to chill the blood and tingle the ears. Unbelievers are burned until their skins are gone, and then are given new skins so the process can be repeated. They are forced to drink scalding water or to hang over hot furnaces while their flesh is cut off with scissors of fire and their brains boil inside their heads.⁷

Actually, this description of brains boiling inside the heads of victims in pagan writings about hell is mirrored by the late nineteenth-century Roman Catholic J. Furniss:

The fourth dungeon is the boiling kettle . . . in the middle of it is a boy. . . . His eyes are burning like two burning coals. . . . But listen! There is a sound like a kettle boiling. . . . The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head.⁸

Modern Notions of a “Kinder Gentler Hell”

Many modern Christian theologians have gone to an opposite extreme. These religious teachers claim that hell does not contain any fire or physical suffering but only never-ending mental suffering that results from being “eternally separated from God.” But of course, the Bible does describe a very literal fiery hell, in passages such as Matthew 13:37-50; 18:8-9; 25:41; 2^ndPeter 3; and Revelation 20. And really, even if hell were merely a state of mental suffering where people exist for all eternity in darkness, loneliness, and desolate despondency what an absolutely horrible place that would be.

I recall listening to the radio one Sunday morning back in the late 1980s as the pastor of a large Church preached on the subject of hell. The preacher’s congregation at the time was one of the largest mega-congregations in the world, with more than 25,000 members. I don’t recall any descriptions of literal fire or literal worms, but I do remember very vividly the preacher’s hair-raising description of lost souls “falling, falling, ever falling, for never-ending ages, in blackness and darkness, in hopeless despair!” No doubt the preacher was well meaning, but he displayed a moral reality-disconnect when he tried to reconcile a loving God to such extremely unnecessary judgments. Even without the physical torments of literal fire, the preacher’s hell of forever falling in blackness and darkness and heart-wrenching despair would indeed be an unbelievably nasty place of mental anguish beyond even his ability to describe and embellish it.

After centuries of teaching the Augustinian dogma that infants who die unbaptized go straight to the fires of hell, Roman Catholicism finally “softened” its position by inventing Limbo for the infants. We might refer to Limbo as “hell light.” Finally, in recent times the Catholic Church once again changed its position, and, for the most part, now teaches that the disembodied souls of unbaptized infants do go to heaven after all. What does Roman Catholicism officially teach about the nature of hell today?

In 1999 Pope John Paul II declared that . . . “Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy”.⁹

By contrast, just a few years later Pope Benedict XVI presented a different picture, a picture of a real “inferno.” So much for papal infallibility, unless of course we want to turn a blind eye to the discrepancy by asserting that the popes were not speaking ex-cathedra (i.e. “as the authority of God”).

Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, Benedict XVI said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to “admit blame and promise to sin no more”, they risked “eternal damnation — the Inferno”. Hell “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more”, he said.¹⁰

Vatican officials said that the Pope — who is also the Bishop of Rome — had been speaking in “straightfoward” language “like a parish priest”. He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that Hell is a “state of eternal separation from God”, to be understood “symbolically rather than physically”.¹¹

No wonder people who listen to such spin-doctoring don’t have any confidence in so-called “straightforward” language. These theologians seem to want to have mental suffering without physical pain. I wonder if all the mind-stretching mental suffering ever causes the souls in hell to get a real pounding physical headache? — I mean like real pain! Reality eludes the modern traditionalist philosophers just as surely as it eluded the medieval. Biblical reality-based truth in its simplicity does away with a need for pontificating, theologizing, and philosophizing. Realistic, straight, Biblical teaching eliminates the need for paternalistic authoritarian theologians, and they know it!

Many modern evangelicals and Protestants both liberal and conservative essentially follow this same formula of teaching some form of eternal mental suffering minus the physical. Billy Graham is a prominent example of this.

In an interview with Time Magazine (November 15, 1993), Mr. Graham said this about hell: “The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from his light, from his fellowship. That is going to be hell. When it comes to a literal fire, I don’t preach it because I’m not sure about it. When the Scripture uses fire concerning hell, that is possibly an illustration of how terrible it’s going to be — not fire but something worse, a thirst for God that cannot be quenched.”¹²

In Graham’s book, The Challenge, Sermons from Madison Square Garden, Graham says, “Could it be that the fire Jesus talked about is an eternal search for God that is never quenched? Is that what it means? That, indeed, would be hell. To be away from God forever, separated from His Presence.”¹³

There are many things about Billy Graham’s messages that I believe were truly Biblical and loving, but was he really presenting Biblical truth in these statements? Please think about Dr. Graham’s assertion for a minute, and ask yourself some questions. How many resolutely wicked people do you know of that actually “search for the true God of the Bible”? And how many of them think that they are experiencing hell because they are “away from God . . . separated from His presence”? How many of them would have it otherwise?

Actually, Benedict XVI sounded a little closer to Biblical reality when he asserted, “hell really exists” as an “inferno.” Of course, his Vatican representatives immediately put a muddling spin on the obvious meaning of his statement with their reminder that the new Catholic catechism presents hell as a “state of eternal separation from God,” to be understood “symbolically rather than physically.”

Torment is torment, isn’t it? How does one experience torment “symbolically”? The nearest reality-based equation I have come up with relative to this so-called “symbolic torment” in “separation from God” is the concept of being put in “time out.”

My mother left me in the corner staring at a clock one time for a whole hour. Did your mother ever discipline you by making you stand or sit in the corner for a period of “time out” when you were a child? Perhaps you might want to refresh your memory of what “time out” is like by sitting in the corner and watching the seconds tick by on a wall clock for, say, twenty-four hours — nothing else to do, no book, no TV, no games, no nothing. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick . . . . Whew! Or perhaps you might want to sit in pitch darkness and just listen to the seconds tick by for twenty-four hours — no goose down comforter, no music, no crickets or bullfrogs or nightingales, just the monotonous tick, tick, ticking of the clock. Then imagine going all week like that, or all year, or forever, eternity without end. Now that would be hell, wouldn’t it? You bet it would! Without God, it would surely lead eventually to absolute stark raving madness. Is that what the modern theologian’s hell is like? — never-ending extreme mental torment and madness? The real problem is this: It does not match up with the literal fiery hell described in the Bible, which begins with “wailing and gnashing of teeth”, and ends with “ashes” as the convicts “vanish away into smoke.” (Matthew 13:42, 50; Malachi 4:3; Psalm 37:20)

God did not warn Adam and Eve of separation from Him in a conscious, disembodied state as pope John Paul II and Billy Graham imply; that’s not what Genesis 2:17 says. He warned them that death would be the consequence of eating the forbidden fruit. “Thou shalt surely die.”

We cannot escape the sleep of temporal death. But Jesus has promised to raise everyone back from that death. “There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.”(Acts 24:15b) Nevertheless, the impenitent will face judgment and suffer the ultimate “second death,” which means that God will irrevocably “blot out . . . of the book of life” anyone who ends his/her probationary life in rebellion against the principles of His government. (Revelation 3:5)

Defining Reality

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines reality as, “truth; fact; in distinction from mere appearance. . .” According to the World Book Dictionary, 1971 edition, reality is the “true state of affairs” or an “actual fact.” The dictionary illustrates the definition with the following statement of fact: “Ghosts have no place in reality.”

In law, the word really can stand for reality. In other words, reality is the way things really are, not the way we wish things to be or the way we pretend them to be. You and I cannot simply declare or pretend reality to be something other than what it actually is and have it so. In order to make reality we must have the power to do so. (Of course, we can affect “reality” in a physical sense to a limited degree in this world. But we cannot alter eternal realities that the sovereign God has established.)

The issue then is this: No human being has the power to tell God that His reality must change. Frankly, not even a pope has such power, even if he thinks he does or pretends that he does. God tells us what is real. We must come in line with that reality. If we refuse to accept and live in God’s reality, we will cease to exist altogether because reality is what it is and it cannot accept anything that does not fit within its fact. We need to go to the immortal God’s Holy Word and find out what reality is, not what some mortal man says it is.

Popes and church councils have often disagreed with one another. For example, one pope declares hell to be a state of mind and another pope declares it a literal inferno. Does God change the state of reality each time a new pope comes up with a new idea, which contradicts a former pope? Hardly! We need to go to the immortal God’s Holy Word and find out what reality is, not what some mortal man says it is.

Let’s not teach Satan-inspired falsehoods conjured-up in the imaginations of theologians — even the well-meaning ones. Instead, let’s present what the Bible really teaches and many hearts will be drawn out to the God of heaven who perfectly balances justice and mercy. “Mercy and truth are met together; justice and peace have kissed [each other].”(Psalm 85:10 margin). This, dear friend, is a description of the character of God.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”(Matthew 5:7) Would He pronounce a blessing on the merciful and then fail to demonstrate that characteristic Himself? God is Himself the source of all mercy. God’s very name is “merciful and gracious.” (Exodus 34:6) He is not a vindictive extremist. He does not torture forever; instead, He metes out a just punishment that ends with the irrevocable and permanent“second death.” And even the death of His wicked children is not a pleasant thing to Him. “As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” (Ezekiel 33:11a)

God is omnipotent! (See Revelation 19:6) Thus, God has the power to end the existence of any soul any time He wills to do so. In mercy to us, the redeemed, and for our peace of mind, our merciful Father will punish unrepentant people with the just punishment they deserve and no more. It would be inconsistent with His own character and with the characteristics that He teaches and blesses for Him to punish the sins of this brief earthly life with never-ending torments. The torments of hell will be very real and very horrible, but they will come to a just and merciful end.

Clearly, Jesus’ hyperbole-laced description of the rich man requesting that Lazarus place a drop of water on his burning tongue in the flames of hell was never intended to be used as a Reality Bible study on eternal torment! Jesus agreed 100% with the Old Testament witness of “Moses and the prophets” that the dead are asleep in the dust of the earth until the resurrection. Nevertheless, as Jesus Himself pointed out when closing His parable, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”(Luke 16:31)

Jesus proved this point a few weeks later when He actually did raise a man named Lazarus from the dead. Did that astonishing miracle convince the religious leaders of His connection with God and cause them to accept His teachings on love? No! In fact, they determined all the more to blindly reject His teachings and they plotted to shut Him up by killing both Him and the man whom He had raised from the dead. (See John 11:47-54; 12:9-10) I don’t think it was a coincidence that the man in Jesus’ parable and the man he raised were both named Lazarus.

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