Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We Made Up

by Francis Chan

Hell Is a Place of Punishment after Judgment The typical afterlife scenario among Jews in Jesus’ day was that after the wicked die, they go to a place called hades, sometimes called sheol. This is not the same thing as “hell.” Hades is not usually depicted as a place of punishment, though the wicked may suffer there. It is a place where the wicked wait until judgment day. After they are judged, the wicked are then thrown into hell as punishment for their sins. It’s important to note that for the first-century Jew, this punishment is not corrective or remedial (think “remedy”); in other words punishment doesn’t make them fit for salvation. Rather, hell is retributive—it’s God’s punishment for sin. Consider the following: [T]he chambers shall give up the souls which have been committed to them. And the Most High shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment … recompense shall follow … unrighteous deeds shall not sleep. Then the pit of torment shall appear … and the furnace of Gehenna shall be disclosed. (first century AD)7 The same writer described gehenna, or hell, as a place of “fire and torments,” where the wicked “wander about in torments, ever grieving and sad.” Worst of all, this judgment is final, “because they cannot now make a good repentance that they may live.”8 According to another Jewish writer, [T]he sinners are set apart when they die and are buried in the earth and judgment has not been executed upon them in their lifetime, upon this great pain, until the great...