THE GEHENNA OF FIRE—ENTERING MAIMED INTO LIFE—“SON OF HELL”—“TONGUE SET ON FIRE OF HELL”—THE WORM THAT DIES NOT—SHEOL—HELL—SORROWS OF HELL.
There is one text in the letter of our second Newark correspondent we have not yet alluded to. This is Matthew 18: 8. But as other passages bearing upon the same subject have occupied the minds of others, we shall present them for consideration at this time in the words of the following extract of correspondence:
Pleasant Valley, Scott Co., Iowa.
Dear Brother:
There are two churches of what I would term “Campbellite Disciples” in this region; and a third about twelve miles off in the country. They don’t wish to have much to do with the Herald. The Universalists are attracting the attention of the people hear more than any others. They have a preacher at $400 * a year, beside which, I am told, “a donation party” presented him with $150 or $200 in money; so much do they “honor” the man who preaches smooth things to them, and cries “peace and safety,” when sudden destruction is at the door. He is a pretty good speaker in his way; able to say what he desires to speak in a strong and pointed manner. In a discourse the other day on the words in Matthew 10, “Fear not them who kill the body” &c., he asserted that the word “Gehenna” was nowhere used in the Old Testament; and that the Gentiles were never threatened with “hell-fire,” or a destruction in Gehenna. I would like to have particular information on this matter; and to know the meaning of the texts, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell”—Psalm 9: 17; “Let them go down quick into Hell”—Psalm 55: 15; “the sorrows of hell compassed me”—Psalm 18: 4-5; Isaiah 14: 15. It would be a particular satisfaction to me to know what to say on this subject in conversation; and it would tend, I believe, to relieve some from embarrassment.
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* Four hundred dollars with presents is quite a moderate hire. The Rev’d James Henshall, late “Campbellite-Disciple” preacher in this city, we understand, received $800, besides funeral and marriage fees. This was a more profitable business than hammering on the lapstone. He enjoyed this stipend, or thereabouts, for several years; and was enabled to support his family “respectably” and to buy property. The present incumbent, the Rev. R. L. Coleman, editor of the “Christian Intelligencer,” we are informed, commenced where his predecessor left off. He had not been here long, however, before he told the leaders that he would not preach for them unless they gave him $1000 a year. They agreed; and Mr. C. remains. We labored two years and a half at the same house without fee, and these divines have entered into our labor and found rest.
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The same speaker asserted also in the same discourse, that it was the Roman power the Saviour instructed his disciples to fear, since that they only had power to put men to death; whereas the Jews had power only to torture or distress the body, as he explained the term “kill” in the text. He affirmed also that men were nowhere commanded in the Bible to fear God; but rather to put their trust in him.
The Universalist preacher has made considerable effort to establish his notions in this section, and has thus far succeeded to a great extent; but his progress will probably be stopped. Very many stumbling blocks have been placed before him in the form of texts to preach from. The last presented and preached from was, “Enter in at the strait gate.” This was his hardest effort. He said that “the strait gate” and narrow way was the entrance into the Kingdom of Christ then established on earth through faith and obedience to the gospel, in doing justly, and so fulfilling the golden rule; and the broad way to destruction was the way that led to the destruction of the Jews at Jerusalem. But the way to heaven was a broad and free way, which was Jesus Christ through the resurrection! This was a desperate effort. I have handed him in the question, “Does the scripture teach a redemption from the Second Death?” He has since announced that he will deliver two discourses on the Second Death, founded on a part of Revelation 20; but he has not shown a disposition to take the question as it stands.
What I should like to know is this, whether there is to be found in the original of the Old Testament, terms of expressions indicating retribution in the world beyond death? When you have an opportunity please give us something on the subject. Do you know that Dr. Gatchel of Cincinnati has turned Universalist?
Your’s affectionately,
E. D.
The passage to which our Newark friend refers reads thus, “Woe to the world because of delusions (skandala;) for there is a necessity that delusions come: but woe to that man through whom the delusion cometh. Wherefore if thy hand, or thy foot ensnare thee cut them off and cast them from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands and two feet to be cast into the enduring fire (eis to pur to aionion).” In the next verse the place of the fire is mentioned in these words, “into the Gehenna of the fire (eis teen geenan tou puros.” The parallel text in Mark 9: 42-49, is expressed somewhat differently. In two verses it reads “enter into life,” and in a third “enter into the kingdom of God,” expressions which are explanatory one of the other: for no man can enter into life eternal unless he enter the kingdom of God. Mark’s phraseology concerning the fire also varies from Matthew’s. He calls the Gehenna of enduring fire, an inextinguishable fire. His words are, “It is better to enter into (eiselthein) the life maimed than having two hands to go away into (apellt ein eis) the Gehenna, into the fire inextinguishable—eis teen Geenan, eis to pur to asbeston.” In the common version asbeston is rendered “never to be quenched.” This, however, is not correct. Asbeston is a neuter adjective and simply expresses a quality, not the time of the fire’s continuance. It was a judicial fire Jesus was speaking of, and of that fiery judgment he affirmed that it was inextinguishable, that is, by any other power than God’s. Mark also adds that the judgment occurs in Gehenna “where their worm does not end, and the fire is not put out.” This our Lord repeated thrice to give it emphasis.
Luke in recording the same incident says nothing about Gehenna, worm, and fire; but stops short in his report at the end of Mark 9: 42, saying that it is better for the deceiver “that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”
The Gehenna of the fire is styled by Jesus in Matthew 23: 33, the Judgment of the Gehenna—krisis tees geennees—tendered in the English version “the damnation of hell.” The Gehenna-judgment of fire was denounced upon the “serpents and generation of vipers” in Israel. Malachi predicted it; John and Jesus proclaimed its approach; the apostles preached the “judgment to come,” and some of them witnessed it in the dissolution of the order of things constituted by the Mosaic code. The judgment of Gehenna was the day of the Lord upon the forty-second generation of Abraham’s descendants. “His furnace was in Jerusalem,” and when it came the day burned as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that did wickedly, were stubble; and they were burned up, so that the day left them neither root nor branch. For that generation filled up the measure of their fathers; so that upon them came the national punishment due for all the righteous blood that had been shed upon the land from Abel to Zachariah son of Barachias whom they slew during the siege of their city by the Romans. —Malachi 4: 1; Matthew 23: 34-39.
The Judgment of Gehenna was the Baptism of Fire with which John the Baptist said the Messiah would overwhelm the Pharisees and Sadducees, and their factions in the state. “O generation of vipers,” said he to them, “who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father.’ The axe is now laid to the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. There standeth one among you, whom ye know not, he shall baptise you with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat in his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with fire inextinguishable.” The enemies of the Lord Jesus in Israel were the stubble, the trees bearing bad fruit, and the chaff of his land or floor. He came to bring fire, and division, and a sword upon the land that every offender might be eradicated from his kingdom’s territory. “His fire was in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem”—Isaiah 31: 9; Matthew 13: 34-39; and into this burning oven he cast the trees of unrighteousness by the Romans as his messengers of destruction, where their worm or anguish ceased not, and the fire of his indignation was unquenched.
Gehenna is the Hebrew name for a valley outside the wall of Jerusalem on the south-east. It is compounded of two words pronounced ge Hinnom, the valley of Hinnom, and is first mentioned in the scriptures in Joshua 15: 8. It should never be rendered by the word “hell,” especially in the sectarian sense of the word. Dr. George Campbell says “that Gehenna is employed in the New Testament to denote the place of future punishment prepared for the devil and his angels, is indisputable. In the Old, however, we do not find this place in the same manner mentioned.” But the Doctor did not understand the prophets; therefore his judgment cannot be received as “indisputable” in the case. The devil and his angels are no where said to be cast into Gehenna: but into an enduring fire far off from the land of Israel.
In the nineteenth chapter Jeremiah is commanded by the Lord to go forth into Gai-ben-Hinnom, the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and prophecy there against the kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. He charges them with having burned incense in it to other gods; with having filled it with the blood of innocents; and with having burned their sons with fire as offerings unto Baal there. Because of these horrible crimes he tells them that the place should no more be called Tophet, nor Gehenna, but the Valley of Slaughter. And they shall bury them in Tophet till there be no place to bury. This was the judgment of Gehenna executed upon Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and nearly 700 years afterwards by the Romans.
With the popular notions about the kingdom of God it is not possible to interpret the passages before us in Matthew and Mark. How can a man enter eternal life in a kingdom beyond the skies one-eyed, or maimed, as the result of losing an eye or a hand; does the loss of a member of the body extend to what is called “the immortal soul?” This question is unanswerable. The texts cannot be explained on any other grounds than of the doctrine we teach; but upon this all difficulty disappears. Thus, when Jesus spoke the words it was expected that the kingdom was about to be set up by the God of heaven in the land of Israel immediately. Had this been the case it would have been contemporary with the forty-second generation to which the words were addressed. Now if the eye, hand, or foot, or any thing equally dear, belonging to one or more of that generation, had caused them to offend, and they had acted literally upon that advice, they would have been halt, maimed, or one-eyed, contemporarily with two events—first, with the judgment of Gehenna, which was to precede the setting up of the kingdom; and secondly, with the establishment of the kingdom itself. Had they preferred to retain the cause of offence, they would have been cast whole into the Zion-fire, and Jerusalem-furnace by the Roman power; but casting it from them, and taking heed to the signs of the coming of the Son of Man, they would have escaped the descending wrath of heaven, and have been prepared for entrance into the kingdom, maimed or halt, should it have been set up in their life-time. Had this been the case, the maimed, the halt, and the one-eyed would have been operated upon by the Spirit of God, which would have changed them in the twinkling of an eye into whole, incorruptible, and angelic men. Their eyes, hands, and feet would have been restored to them, by the same power that will restore the mouldering dust of former beings to its rightful possessors. Thus they would have entered maimed into the life of the kingdom, but would not have continued so, being made whole by the Spirit of God.
Gehenna and Tophet have reference to the same valley. Hinnom’s Valley was called Tophet from the beating of the Toph, or drum, to drown the cries of the burning infants by its noise. Gehenna occurs twelve times in the New Testament. In two of these the use of it is figurative but singularly expressive. The proselytes of the Pharisees to their traditions are said to be twofold more sons of Gehenna than themselves. The Pharisees were heirs of the judgment in Gehenna; any proselyte of their’s would therefore be heir of it too as their disciple, and also by his own practice. The leaven of the heirs of the Gehenna-judgment set on fire the unruly tongues of those who set up for teachers in the Jewish congregations. They taught the concision of the believing Pharisees who sought to blend the gospel and the law that the offence of the cross might cease. Now these were some of the men through whom scandals came, and upon whom Jesus pronounced the woe of Gehenna-fire. Their doctrine was a deadly poison, a wisdom that was earthly, sensual, and devilish, producing envying and strife, confusion and every evil work. So that the tongue that worked out such results was said to be “set on fire of Gehenna.”—James 3: 6. “Where their worm dieth not.” This is affirmed in scripture of carcasses as the reader may see by turning to Isaiah 66: 24. The undying existence of the worm is bounded by the duration of the body. Antiochus, king of Syria, was eaten of worms while alive. His worm did not die. If it had, he might have recovered his health; but it died not, therefore he died a miserable death.
It is true that the Gentiles are not threatened with the fire of Gehenna in the Testaments, Old and New. The armies of the nations, however, are threatened with destruction in the Valley of Jehoshaphat which is continuous with the Valley of Gehenna; and the nations themselves with hailstones, fire and brimstone, and a burning tempest. As to the dead, those who are raised partake in the same torment in the regions whither they are commanded to “depart.” In this way “the wicked will be turned into Sheol”—Psalm 9: 17, but not into Gehenna; sheol being the word used in that place, as well as in the other texts referred to by “E. D.”
There has been a great deal of controversy aforetime about this word sheol; some contending that it means simply a grave, or sepulchre, in particular; others the grave in general; and others again “the place of departed spirits,” and exactly rendered into Greek by hades. “Taken by itself,” says Dr. George Campbell, “we have no word in our language that answers to sheol;” yet he says, “I freely acknowledge that by translating sheol the grave, the purport of the sentence is often expressed with sufficient clearness.” It can, however, only be fully rendered by the sentiment. The Doctor adduces the text in Genesis as an evidence that grave will answer in many places; as, “Ye will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.” Here, he says, “it undoubtedly gives the meaning of the sentence in the original, notwithstanding that the English word grave does not give the meaning of the Hebrew word sheol.” He argues that sheol means more than grave from the saying of God by Moses, “A fire is kindled in mine anger which shall burn to the lowest hell,” or sheol. He admits, however, that it is here used hyperbolically; but contends that the hyperbole is based upon something deeper, more profound, or ample than the word grave implies.
The doctor is unquestionably right in saying that sheol means more than grave, but he is wrong in maintaining that it signifies the place of the living ghosts of dead men both good and bad. He admits that tsalmoth, shadow of death, rendered hades by the Seventy, is ordinarily synonymous with sheol, and is sometimes used metaphorically for a very dark place, or a state of great ignorance. This is true, and indicates the condition of the dead, both good and bad, in sheol and hades; and is in strict accordance with Solomon’s doctrine, who was second only in wisdom and knowledge to the Lord Jesus. He says, “there is no knowledge nor wisdom in sheol,” and that the dead there “know not any thing.” It is testimony, and not speculation—the declaration of Holy Writ, and not rhetorical, philological, and mythological disquisitions, by which such words in scripture must be defined. The revelation itself shows, that sheol is the death-state subsequently to the corruption of the body in the grave. If it be asked, “how came the word sheol to be applied to this dissolved state of the body?” We answer because the body is then in question, and the noun sheol is derived from the verb shaal to ask, or to make inquisition. Thus, the body, or a dead man, in sheol, may be said to be in two states—first, entire and undecomposed; and secondly, resolved into dust. In the former he is simply in keber, the grave or sepulchre, and in bor the pit; but in the latter, his keber is barkthai bor in the sides of the pit; and they who deposited him in the keber or sepulchre, looking in some time afterwards and not seeing him, ask the question “Where is he?” The not seeing him is expressed by hades, which signifies his invisibility; and the inquisition after him, by sheol which imports that he was sought, or asked for, because of his disappearance. Abraham is not only in keber, but in sheol, in tzalmoth, and in barkthai bor. If a person were told he was in the cave of Machpelah, and were to look in to see, he would say “where is he, I see him not?” Because Abraham is thus in question he is said to be in sheol.
Our old English word Hell is a derivative from the Saxon hillan or helan to hide, or from holl a cavern, and anciently denoted the concealed or unseen place of the dead in general. Hell has lost its original meaning, and comes now to represent a place of torment such as is found only in the mythologies of Greece and Rome. The arena of punishment is above, and not underground, among the living, and not the dead. When the wicked are turned into sheol, they will be sought for, and found no more; for, having then gone down to “the sides of the pit,” they will be but dust and ashes under the soles of the living’s feet, even as Adam was before the Lord formed him from the ground.
To “go down quick into hell,” sheol chayim, is to be seized with sudden and violent death. Judas, who is one of the persons referred to in the text, went into sheol living. Koran, Dathan, and Abiram, also “went down quick into the pit,” chayim sheol, living into death. Thus “they died not the common death of all men, nor were they visited after the visitation of all men;” this uncommon death is the scriptural idea of going down “quick into hell.”—Numbers 16: 29-33.
“The sorrows of hell.” The cheblai maveth and the cheblai sheol are interpreted by the facts recorded of Jesus. When he was suspended on the cross, and surrounded by the multitudes, he was compassed by the cheblai maveth, or “sorrows of death;” but when he was laid in the keber of Joseph of Arimathea, he was compassed about by the cheblai sheol, or “sorrows of hell,” and prevented by the mokshai maveth, or “snares of death,” which held him as in a trap. Cheblai are pains in general; also bonds.
The strength of Universalism and of sectarian theology in general, not excluding Campbellism, is the ignorance of the people in regard to the things noted in the scriptures of the prophets. The New Testament doctrine of rewards and punishments is nothing more than an allusive reproduction of the Old Testament teaching on the subject. Being ignorant of the kingdom, they are of necessity in the dark concerning every thing else. They know nothing as they ought to know it. Before their sayings can be treated with any more respect than the sayings of children, they must go back to the a, b, c, and make themselves acquainted with the first principles and elements of things. The Universalist pleases those who hire him. This is his business, as it is the business of all other rival teachers. They are all Babel builders alike, hindering and interrupting one another in their work. Their tower will never become the Holy City. Universalists become Campbellites and Campbellites, Universalists, like Dr. Gatchel. It matters not. We are surprised at nothing. Men ignorant of the prophets are liable to turn anything that may suit the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. It would no ways astonish us if Master Aleck himself were to make a somerset in that direction, if such a change were found to be expedient!
There are not only Hebrew terms and expressions, but English ones also, in the Old Testament, indicating retribution in the world beyond death. Here is one place in Daniel 12: 1-2. Speaking of the time when the Little Horn of the Goat “shall come to his end, and none shall help him,” that is, when the Stone strikes the Image, the Spirit says that Daniel’s people, the Jews, shall be delivered; and that “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”—lacharaphoth lediron olam—to reproach and contempt unlimited, but not endless, save in the memory of the righteous, who will always hold the remembrance of them in abhorrence. Here is retribution beyond the first death to which certain attain by resurrection from among the dead in sheol. It will not do for Universalists to apply this text to the destruction of Jerusalem; for the Jews were not then “delivered,” but destroyed; when the awakening in Daniel occurs, their enemies will be destroyed, and they delivered. All of which is respectfully submitted to his readers by their friend the—EDITOR
“In argument with “the common people,” how do we substantiate the views we present on the great leading truths? Assuredly not by philological niceties, nor by laying the stress on mere words that look to teach a certain doctrine, but by masses of arguments from scripture that demonstrate the indispensableness of just such or such a view.”—Dobney.
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