Hell, What Is It Not Like?: A Reply To A Friend

A friend recently commented upon my essay about Annihilationism, entitled, The Abandonment of Hell. He asked that I review a particular sermon by David Wilkerson entitled Hell, What Is It Like? available on audio here.

My friend stated that he would like to hear my response after listening to it.

While I was somewhat familiar with the name David Wilkerson, I was not at first sure from where.

The basic thrust of this sermon is not to prove that “hell” exists but to describe what “hell” is like.

I. The first difficulty with Wilkerson’s sermon is that he states the well-known fallacy that Jesus preached on “hell” more than He preached on “heaven”. I first heard this statement when I was 9 being made by my childhood pastor. My first response to that statement was one of suspicion. Therefore, I went through the Gospels to see for myself. I am not really sure where preachers get this particular statement from, but it is without merit.

Jesus only refers to what our Bibles translate as “hell” about 21 times. But within this translation, “hell”, there are two distinct ideas. What we consider “hell” is what Christ referred to as Gehenna. (Mark 9:43-48, 2 Chronicles 28:3, 2 Chronicles 33:6)

Gehenna is the garbage dump outside Jerusalem that continued to burn. Gehenna is referred to in the Old Testament as the valley of Hinnom where detestable acts of sin were committed. This is why the Jews eventually turned it into a dump to burn garbage.

No one doubts that this is the case. Even modern conservative evangelical scholars who do not believe in annihilationism believe that Jesus is using Gehenna as a metaphor for hell, albeit as “eternal conscious torment.” Jesus refers to Gehenna about 11 times.

But our modern Bibles also translate hades as “hell”. Hell (hades) refers to the grave where the dead reside until the resurrection and hell (geena) which is the place of final punishment for the unredeemed. Hades is the Greek translation of the Jewish afterlife of Sheol. Throughout the Old Testament, Sheol is the place where the dead lie asleep until the resurrection. It is not synonymous with Gehenna/the Lake of fire. Both the redeemed and unredeemed go to Sheol of which the Old Testament bears witness. It is the ground, the grave, the earth from which dust returns to dust. In Old Testament Hebrew poetry, Sheol/grave/hades/hell is a physical place sometimes at the bottom of the ocean (Jonah 2) but mostly under the ground. Sheol is death and not consciousness. Paul frequently refers to those believers who have died as being asleep (i.e., soul sleep) and that they will be resurrected again on the last day. When Saul went to the witch of Endor, Samuel was summoned out of his “quiet” in the earth (1 Samuel 28). Sheol is where all the unredeemed and redeemed currently reside from Adam to whoever until the second coming of Christ. It is death as dust and complete unconsciousness.

Therefore, the only actual number of Jesus using the word “hell” to refer to the place of eternal punishment is just about a dozen times. Of course, these are instances of events repeated as stories in the three Synoptic Gospels.

But even if we were to speak about all the instances of the word “hell” in our modern Bible, it only comes to about 21 in all the Gospels. Jesus refers to “heaven” about 21 times in just the first 10 chapters of Matthew. The idea that Jesus preaches about “hell” more than “heaven” is completely without basis in fact.

II. Wilkerson takes many of the metaphors of the Bible concerning the final punishment of the wicked literally.

One of the problems that causes such confusion and disagreement among Christians concerning the nature of hell is the tendency of conservatives to take the apocalyptic and prophetic-poetic passages as literal while taking the “straight-forward” teachings as figurative. One will have to read my essay on Annihilationism for a fuller treatment of the subject.

However, let me state that Wilkerson’s view of hell as "literal fire" and "literal worms" has much more affinity with medieval conceptions than modern conservative evangelical scholarship.

III. Wilkerson is getting many of his descriptions of hell not from the Bible but from non-Scriptural sources.

A. Wilkerson states that hell will be “a planet that will be flung far away into another cosmos and flung further and further away from God”.

I’m not sure where Wilkerson gets this description of hell, but its not from the Scriptures.

B. In fact, a lot of what Wilkerson preaches is admittedly not from the Bible but from other unscriptural sources.

1. He says in his sermon that when he wanted to know why “people will be angry in hell” he, therefore, asked the Holy Spirit for the answer that he now preaches: the cross.

Now I often ask God for answers to theological questions but if my answers cannot be proven by either Scripture or by human reason then I do not state such an answer as general evidence but keep such answers as purely a subjective matter between God and myself. If it’s not to be generally found among believers then it is not to be generally stated as a revealed and authoritative truth that all believers must adhere to. This is subjective, particular, and specific revelation, not objective, and general revelation.

2. I mentioned that I was somewhat familiar with the name David Wilkerson, but I was not at first sure from where. I looked him up and found this:

Today he claims to receive prophetic visions of judgment on America. Apostolic Third Wave messages and end-times restoration teaching dominate his sermons.

I do remember him now. A few years ago he stated that Christ was coming on a specific date which came and went without the parousia.

Dr. E. Earle Ellis refers to this aspect of Wilkerson’s current ministry while discussing the issue of prophecy in the New Testament Church (particularly that of 1 Corinthians). Dr. Ellis states that while Wilkerson may have some excellent aspects to his ministry, the fact that his prophecy did not come true speaks to the fact that he is not a prophet and should not be taken as one.

In my own view, Wilkerson is fortunate to have made such a mistake today and not during the Old Testament days. The punishment for false prophecy was quite severe.

IV. The most important flaw in Wilkerson’s view is, sadly, the most common flaw. Wilkerson states that people in hell will have “imperishable bodies”. This really is an inevitable conclusion to the belief that hell is a place of “eternal conscious torment”. If the unredeemed are to be consciously tormented for eternity then there must be something to be eternally tormented. Therefore, if the unredeemed are to have their bodies and minds be eternally tormented (as Wilkerson and so many others believe) then the bodies of the unredeemed must be imperishable.

But there are SO many problems with this view. Here are a few:

A) An imperishable body is the reward for the redeemed, not the unredeemed. One of the rewards for those in Christ is an imperishable body like that of Christ’s. The punishment for not being in Christ is a perishable body. The unredeemed are condemned to perish.

B) Eternal life is the reward for the redeemed, not the unredeemed. If the unredeemed exists forever then they HAVE eternal life.

C) The Scriptures state that "the wages of sin is death", not life. The unredeemed are to be dead not living. If the unredeemed are living in hell then they are not dead.

As I have stated, the main problem with conservative evangelicalism with regards to this issue is that we take metaphorical passages as literal and literal passages as figurative. The Scriptures everywhere literally state that the unredeemed will remain dead. We must believe that this is to be true; the entire basis for the Christian faith as understood by Paul is that only the redeemed will be resurrected into glorified bodies. This is the central tenet of our faith. The belief that the unredeemed will live forever imperils this central aspect of our faith.

I suggest that all those interested should listen to the sermon and read my essay – this should flesh out any confusion.