Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God. Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: Who created the lake of fire? God. When did He create it? In the beginning. Why did He create it? To meet the wishes of those who would choose separation from Him. Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: Satan and those fallen angels who follow him chose to be apart from God, to go their own way. Most human beings choose likewise. They are granted their wish. I think they will spend eternity being too proud to admit that they were wrong even as they are confronted with sure knowledge that they were wrong. Perhaps that is how they will burn... with pride, and hatred, and resentment.
This is what would seem to be the standard understanding of what we read at first glance in scripture, for sure. What I am hoping to do in this thread though is actually tease out from the scripture the specific basis, from Biblical text, upon which these assumptions are made. For instance: Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. As a statement this actually only says that God, (in fact the Cosmic Christ as integral within The Trinity), has made everything that exists and that anything not made by him, has no physical, material existence. So only IF hell has a material, physical existence, does it actually exist materially. Since God did not create human concepts, (IF hell IS a human concept), then God did not make it. We would have made it ourselves, which would make a physical, material concept of hell a result of the fall, a fear (which love has not yet cast out), residing in human consciousness and the subconscious, in folk lore and human imagination. Both Tartarus (ταρταρόω tartaroō; from Τάρταρος Tartaros (the deepest abyss of Hades)), and Hades (ἅ́δης hadēs; properly, unseen, i.e. “Hades” or the place (state) of departed souls: — grave, hell. AV (11) - hell 10, grave 1; A name, Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions, Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead, later use of this word: the grave, death, hell - In Biblical Greek it is associated with Orcus, the infernal regions, a dark and dismal place in the very depths of the earth, the common receptacle of disembodied spirits. Usually Hades is just the abode of the wicked.) These are human concepts from Greek mythology which pre date Jesus Christ by centuries. Jesus may simply have been using the human concept in his teaching because that was what human beings understood, as a concept. That was what they subconsciously feared and understood to be true. That is why I want to explore exactly what scripture says about who made hell and if, and when. Not just the superficial impression we get from reading scripture, but an in depth exposition of the actual scriptural evidence for a contention that God actually made Hell. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. So if God created hell then, would that make hell good or did God create something that is not good? .
At some times the Greek/Latin tartarus/hades is used. But at other times he used gehenna, which was the Hebrew word for hell. Gehenna, if you visit Jerusalem today, is the pit right outside the old city where all the trash and the refuse was thrown, and burnt down, in the ancient times. So yes the Scripture texts use concepts which people understood from a prior reference.
έεννα geenna; of Hebrew origin (h1516 and h2011); valley of (the son of) Hinnom; ge-henna (or Ge-Hinnom), a valley of Jerusalem, used (figuratively) as a name for the place (or state) of everlasting punishment: Used either literally, (could have been literally implying the people referred to would be thrown on the burning rubbish) or additionally, figuratively just face an equally unpleasant end, found in the synoptic Gospels (11) times in the KJV. ἅ́δης hadēs; properly, unseen, i.e. “Hades” or the place (state) of departed souls: — grave, hell. Used figuratively, since it had no physical equivalent like (γέεννα geenna). The relatively fewer references, (4) in the KJV synoptic Gospels, are all contextually implying a state or mode of existence, after death, a concept imported from Greek culture which Hebrews had syncretistically absorbed into their own religion through the heavily resisted and, (much abhorred by the more devout Hebrew religious sects), process of Hellenisation, but largely accepted in the culture of the common people to whom Jesus preached. Interestingly there is no mention of either Gehenna, Hades or Tartarus in the Gospel of St John. .
That is very true. There are many things we consider 'bad' which may not be so in a Godly perspective and many things we may consider 'good' which God consideres very bad indeed. However if we are to consider the possibility that God created Hell before the fall, and declared it 'good', like he did the rest of creation, then we would have to re-evaluate diseases such as cancer, polio, leprosy, syphilis etc. and attribute those also to a benignly 'good' creator. We can't have our cake AND eat it. We do know however that Jesus Christ rebuked disease on earth but warned of Gehenna and Hades, though he did also state that Hades would fall before the onslaught of The Church, just as disease fell before the command of Christ on earth. So it would appear that Christ found nothing appealing about the concept of the wicked being enduringly punished in Hell, quite the opposite in fact. He did and said everything he could do or say to convince everyone to ensure the place stayed empty. And promised that the Church would eventually break down its gates, occupy it, and close the place down. Matt.16:18. The word here was Hades incidentally. .
Ok, but where does it say that in scripture? The Lake of Fire is mentioned. Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:10, Revelation 20:14, Revelation 20:15, Revelation 21:8. But nothing is said concerning who made it or when it was made or why. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Gen.1:1. But Hell is not mentioned at all in the list of all that God created throughout the whole of Genesis from beginning to end. Neither is anything said, to my knowledge, concerning God, 'meeting the wishes of the false prophet, the beast, the damned, the Devil, Death, Hell or those who names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, along with, the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, (which would have to include ex-President Trump and many other politicians and journalists)', all of whom are consigned to the Lake of fire, according to the author of Revelation. So as plausible as these three answers may be, they are not actual exegesis but imaginative eisegetical mythologising of the actual words of the scripture. .
I assumed you were referring to the lake of fire, that final residence of the damned, since "hell" refers primarily to the grave and secondarily to a temporary place of torment for the unrighteous prior to final judgment. Perhaps you should clarify which place you wanted to discuss? You yourself quoted the Scripture that says who made the lake of fire (and the temporary places): Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. Unless you wish to propose that the lake of fire is not a created place (which seems unsupportable), then it falls under the category of "all things that were made" by God the Son. The same logic should apply to temporary dwelling places for the dead who await judgment; they were some of the "all things" created by God. As to the 'when,' there is nothing specific in the Bible. Admittedly it may have been after the fall of Lucifer rather than at the time when the universe was created. I don't think we can know for sure. Does the exact timing matter? And for the 'why,' Jesus said (Matt. 25) that the lake of fire was prepared for Satan and the fallen angels. That statement does not specifically exclude the possibility that it was prepared for all who were deceived by or followed Satan, be they fallen angels or fallen men, neither does it specifically state it as such. We can see in Revelation 21:8, however, that fallen humans are assigned there during the judgment. Since God knows all things that will take place, and knew them from the beginning, one may surmise that the lake of fire was prepared for all of the above (God would not 'be surprised' and have to go back and redesign the place). From God's point of view, all of these places are needful and He made them 'to perfection,' therefore they are "good." From the point of view of those who wind up in the lake of fire, maybe they're not so good... but it's God's opinion that counts, right?
The word Hell was expertly used in 1526 by William Tyndale to translate the Greek Hades, which in turn translates the Hebrew Sheol. All three refer to the underworld abode of the dead- the collective grave of the souls of men in classical mythology. ('Hell' [Old English: hel] is a concept that predates the introduction of Christianity in the British Isles; see also the 'Hel' of Old Norse mythology. 'Sheol' in Hebrew also refers to the grave generally and hell, etymologically speaking, is related to 'hole'.) It's worth noting that Wycliffe and Purvey used helle/hellis in their 14th century Middle English translation, which was linguistically closer in time to the Old High German hella, the Gothic halja, and the Proto-Germanic *heljo. However, they also used helle to translate Gehenna. Tyndale also used 'hell' to translate the Latin Gehenna from the Greek Ge'enna, which in turn transliterates - but does not translate - the Hebrew ge (ben) Hinnom (lit. valley of the son of Hinnom). Ulfilas, in his 4th century translation of the New Testament into Gothic, translated Hades as Halja and transliterated Gehenna as gaiainna - just as the Greek text does. In other words, he (or, rather, the team of scholars that made the translation) made the proper distinction between the underworld - Sheol, Hades, Hel, *Heljo - and the Biblical imagery of the fiery valley. They were able to do this because they understood the pagan worldview. As pre-Christian beliefs were suppressed and effectively forgotten over time, the distinction between Hades and Gehenna became blurred by the Old High German period (750-1050), during which hella was used to translate both Hades and Gehenna, effectively inventing a new location called Hell. Similarly, because no mythology from the Anglo-Saxon heathen period survived Christianization, speakers of Middle and Modern English did and do not naturally associate 'Hell' with a pre-Christian underworld as they do with the Greek Hades (lacking the mythological context to do so), and thus "Hell" as we know it - a conceptual error from a millennium ago - not as the Sheol/Hades and Gehenna of the Bible, but as a fiery underworld where the unrighteous are tormented forever, persists in our theology today due to the enduring popularity of the Tyndale-King James tradition and the translation industry's unwillingness to deviate from it. Even academic translations such as NET and NRSV use hell to translate Gehenna. In fact, combing through my large collection of digital Bibles for eSword and Logos, only one - the Literal Standard Version - properly leaves Gehenna untranslated in Matthew 10:28. Somehow, though, I don't think LSV will be dethroning the KJV, ESV, NRSV &c. any time soon. That being said, we return to the Biblical 'Hell', Sheol and Gehenna - both of which are Jewish, not Hellenic or Germanic, concepts - and must be interpreted as such. Sheol, like Hades, was once thought to be more or less neutral - the grave, a dark place where everyone goes. Rather poignant, I think. In the 2nd Temple period, the underworld was subdivided into two antechambers - Sheol, or Hades, a place for the unrighteous described variously as gloomy, dark, painful, sorrowful, where the wicked dead are separated from God - and paradise, or Abraham's bosom, where the righteous experience bliss and await the resurrection and final judgment. We find this teaching in Luke chapter 16, as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. That leaves Gehenna. The valley of Hinnom is an actual place located outside of Jerusalem's city walls. According to Jeremiah, there was a topheth, or altar, where children were sacrificed by fire to Moloch - the topheth was destroyed by Josiah and the valley was thereafter considered to be cursed. According to Rabbinic tradition, perpetual fires were kept burning there to consume trash, refuse, and the cadavers of the wicked. These perpetual flames where the wicked are sent to burn, taken literally, are the basis of the medieval mythology of "Hell." The 'lake of fire' in the book of Revelation is traditionally identified with Gehenna. We read in chapter 20 that death and Hades (that is, the afterlife condition of the wicked) are thrown into the lake - that is to say, abolished. Death cannot tormented forever in flames. Rev. 20 continues: "if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." This is the second death. And whose names are written in the Book of Life? Those who have been given eternal life by believing in God's one and only Son. Those who do not have eternal life, whose names are not written in the Book of Life, are annihilated. The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul-substance comes from Platonism, and not from the Scriptures, after-all. To answer your questions, Hell is the "underworld." God did not necessarily 'create' Hell, since we no longer believe in a physically located underworld but rather understand the afterlife in metaphysical terms -- but God certainly ordained it from eternity, as He is beyond space and time, but from a finite, temporal perspective the revelation of His plan occurred during the ministry of Jesus Christ. As to why, we know that the unholy cannot approach God's presence. They are separated from Him and from the righteous in a place of sorrow and darkness until they are annihilated at the final judgement, along with death and Hell, while the righteous are perhaps growing in grace in paradise until perfected.
I, along with many others, assumed the lake of fire to be synonymous with a figurative Gehenna, (not the literal place in the valley of Hinnom), and the concept of Tartarus, the Hellenistic concept of the nether reaches of Hades, (a pagan concept, but well understood by Jews by the time of Revelation's production). Yes, as I think it just stresses the fact that no one else but God has the power to make anything on their own, without assistance from God, in Jesus Christ. In effect it says that everything that exists owes its existence to Christ. Even our good deeds are prepared by him beforehand, for us to walk in. It would not include what we imagine exists though. I don't think this says God made unicorns, Tartarus or Hades. Not all that unsupportable actually; Revelation is classic apocalyptic literature, full of symbolism and metaphor. It is quite possible that its author did not 'see' this lake with the eyes in his head, but with the 'eyes' of his understanding, his spiritual perception, in the Spirit, on The Lord's Day. Revelation 1:9-11. This was a vision remember, and visions of the mind are not necessarily optical realities. They are what our minds may make of spiritual truths. A 'translation' process is involved. Look at the way John 'saw' Christ. Revelation 1:12-16. This is not merely an optical facsimile of Christ, it is a representation of the meaning of the power of Christ within the cosmos He created. In the same manner the Lake of Fire may be symbolic of a spiritual rather than a physical reality. Nevertheless, either way, it remains a fearful image. Well, the Lake we know was 'prepared' for the devil and his angels, so unless God in His omniscience foresaw Satan's rebellion and had the lake made in readiness beforehand, (that seems to assume everything is inevitable and rather unfair of a creator to devise such a plan, knowing full well what would inevitably take place), it would seem the lake is a remedy necessitated by the event of Satan's rebellion. (Knowledge of these matters being way above our pay scale and therefore not fully revealed in scripture should be no great surprise to us here on earth.) Surely their confinement there would follow the judgment, not await it. The lake of fire seems to be a final destination, not a holding cell. It seems to be an antithesis to being named in the Lamb's Book of Life. Everyone's name appears in the Lamb's Book of Life except those whose names have been struck out. I would think so, yes. What I'm not so certain about is that God needs to resort to endorsing Pagan concepts of Hell, Tartarus and Hades in order to enforce His opinion on the eventual fate of His creatures. I think He has that in hand and needs no advice from us and that probably does not include a 'Hell' of the type portrayed by Hollywood or Hellfire Preachers. .
It doesn't matter if it's spiritual or physical, because the point is it's real. In fact, you should rather be hoping that it's only physical, because all physical things by definition have an end. But the spiritual are no less real, and yet have no end. Thus if you are trying to posit a spiritual Hell in your attempt to escape physical pains, then you'd be cutting the nose to spite the face. Spiritual realities are infinitely more extensible and limitless than material things. You really don't want to be in a spiritual Hell: your pain is infinite, your guilt is absolute, your distance from God is forever unbridgeable, and the duration is eternal. Nothing we experience in the physical world is that bad.
Annihilation is contradicted by Scripture. Rev 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. Those who are cast into the lake of fire will be in torment forever, and this is the 'second death.' Rhys, are you by chance a Seventh Day Adventist? They believe in the doctrine of annihilation, if I'm not mistaken, but I know of no mainline or orthodox denominations (including the Mehodists) that teach it.
If the lake of fire was not created by God, then where did it come from? Did it preexist God? Did it spontaneously appear by itself? Stating that "In effect it says that everything that exists owes its existence to Christ" begs the question. It does exist; how could it exist apart from having been created by God? The proposition that God did not create the lake of fire is theologically problematic. On the other hand, if one were to contend that the lake of fire is not real but only a bit of imagery, I find that problematic as well. That is a way of interpreting 'out' of the Bible a thing that one does not want to believe could be real. Just because something in the Bible is a 'hard saying' ("who can hear it?") or is difficult to understand, that doesn't mean it should be allegorized.
By the time we become entirely spiritual the physical will be unreal and have passed away, so I agree with what you are saying here. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. If you had remained in the 1st and 3rd persons throughout, instead of straying into the second person for this paragraph, I would find your second quote more acceptable too, but as it stands I feel rather personally affronted. I do get your point though. .
Sorry I didn't mean to make it about you specifically. The lake of fire is something potentially facing all of us.
You immediately went right into 'concrete thinking' here. It is easy for us to picture a lake of burning sulphur. We have plenty of examples of it in just about every caldera in every active volcano on earth. An effort is required by us to think 'formally' about what that image might mean in a spiritual sense, divorced as we shall be from physical reality as our spiritual bodies will, by then, be. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. An allegorical meaning for the lake of fire is not an unrealistic, imaginary or an interpreting 'out' of something written in the Bible, as if an 'actual limitless volcanic caldera of burning sulphur' is the only interpretation that describes a 'reality', and all others don't. You don't, presumably, picture Jesus Christ having the physical form described here, surely: Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. This is not a photograph of Jesus Christ. It is not a description of his physical appearance in reality. It is the impression his presence will leave upon everyone who gazes upon him whom they had pierced. Revelation 1:7. It is easy for an artist to paint a Lake of Fire and brimstone and make it look physically 'real'. Thus ignoring the fact that he is trying to represent a 'Spiritual' reality. It is much more difficult for an artist to represent with oil paint on canvas a man with flaming eyes, feet like burnished bronze, with a voice like Niagara Falls in full spate, holding seven 'suns' in one hand, with a sharp two edged ('Sword' ῥομφαία rhomphaia; literally a sabre, i.e. a long and broad cutlass i.e. — sword. COMING FROM HIS MOUTH, and make it look even remotely 'REAL'. Just because something we read a description of in Revelation is probably allegorical and representative of a SPIRITUAL reality rather than describing a physically concrete entity, does not mean it NOT an actual spiritual reality. It just means that the spiritual reality being described is as near to the physical description as human understanding can manage, not being able to comprehend the full extent of the spiritual reality being described in purely physical terms, which are the only terms that words are capable of dealing with where allegory is necessary. Stalwart has explained this I think. .
This is problematic only if one holds the view that Scripture is a unified systematic narrative that has no internal contradictions. Each of the three prevailing perspectives on the nature of the Millennium contradict one another. Calvinism and Arminianism contract each other. The same Scriptures that gave us the Roman Catholic Church also gave us the Quakers. You see what I'm getting at. The passage suggests that the devil will be in torment 'eis tous aionas ton aionon'. As for the beast and false prophet, the passage only says that they 'are there.' As for the second death, death itself and hell itself cannot be tormented, let alone forever. As for the dead inhabitants - they are already in hell - that is to say, Sheol/Hades. If Gehenna and the lake of fire are identified as hell, how is it that hell is cast into itself? To say that Sheol will be emptied before being abolished, and the former inhabitants will then be cast into the lake, is to stretch the available material far beyond what is provided. It simply says that the wicked 'have their part' in the lake - their part being the second death. Again, nothing is said here about the wicked dead being tormented for eternity, or for 'ages upon ages' as the Greek has it. The passage suggests that death and hell are to be abolished, and the inhabitants of hell described in 21:8 will be permanently annihilated as a second (i.e., permanent) death and as a logical consequence to follow the abolition of hell. This is, in fact, a direct parallel to the teaching of the 'new birth' in Christ. Those who are not born again into life will die again in the judgement. Annihilationism has always been a minority view, but it is not an unorthodox view. The Adventists are the only denomination that have adopted Annihilationism as a majority view, but the Adventists are not orthodox Christians.