The word Hades occurs
but eleven
times in the New Testament, and is translated Hell ten times, and grave once.
The word is from a, not, and eulo, to see, and means concealed, invisible. It
has exactly the same meaning as Sheol, literally the grave, or death, and
figuratively destruction, downfall, calamity, or punishment in this world,
with no intimation whatever of torment or punishment beyond the grave. Such is
the meaning in every passage in the Old Testament containing the word Sheol or
Hades, whether translated Hell, grave or pit. Such is the invariable meaning
of Hades in the New Testament. Says the "Emphatic Diaglott:"
"To translate Hades by the word Hell as it is done ten times out of
eleven in the New Testament, is very improper, unless it has the Saxon meaning
of helan, to cover, attached to it. The primitive signification of Hell, only
denoting what was secret or concealed, perfectly corresponds with the Greek
term Hades and its equivalent Sheol, but the theological definition given to
it at the present day by no means expresses it."
MEANING OF HADES
The Greek Septuagint, which our
Lord used when he read or quoted from the Old Testament, gives Hades as the
exact equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol, and when the Savior, or his apostles,
use the word, they must mean the same as it meant in the Old Testament. When
Hades is used in the New Testament, we must understand it just as we do
(Sheol or Hades) in the Old Testament.
OPINIONS OF
SCHOLARS
Dr. Campbell well says: "In my judgment,
it ought never in Scripture to be rendered Hell, at least, in the sense
wherein that word is now universally understood by Christians.
In the Old Testament, the
corresponding word is Sheol, which signifies the state of the dead in
general without regard to the goodness or badness of the persons, their
happiness or misery. In translating that word, the seventy have almost
invariably used Hades. It is very plain, that neither in the Septuagint
version of the Old Testament, nor in the New, does the word Hades convey the
meaning which the present English word Hell, in the Christian usage, always
conveys to our minds."-Diss. Vi., pp. 180-1.
Donnegan defines it thus: "Invisible,
not manifest, concealed, dark, uncertain."-Lex. p. 19.
Le Clere affirms that "neither Hades
nor Sheol ever signifies in the Sacred Scripture the abode of evil spirits,
but only the sepulchre, or the state of the dead."
HEATHEN CORRUPTIONS
It must not be forgotten that
contact with the heathen had corrupted the opinions of the Jews, at the time
of our Savior, from the simplicity of Moses, and that by receiving the
traditions and fables of paganism, they had made void the word of God. They
had accepted Hadees as the best Greek word to convey their idea of Sheol,
but without investing it at first with the heathen notions of the classic
Hades, as they afterwards did. What these ideas were, the classic authors
inform us. "The Jews had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental
notions, and their theological opinions had undergone great changes by this
intercourse. We find in Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon, and the
later prophets, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity,
which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus, God represented under
the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of darkness; the
history of good and bad angels; paradise and Hell, etc., are doctrines of
which the origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be
referred to the Oriental philosophy." (Milman's Gibbon ch. 21. of it, or the
heathen and "evangelical" descriptions of Hell are wholly false.)
Dr. Thayer in his "Origin and
History," says: "The process is easily understood. About three hundred and
thirty years before Christ, Alexander the Great had subjected to his rule
the whole of Western Asia, including Judea, and also the kingdom of Egypt.
Soon after he founded Alexandria, which speedily became a great commercial
metropolis, and drew into itself a large multitude of Jews, who were always
eager to improve the opportunities of traffic and trade. A few years later,
Ptolemy Soter took Jerusalem, and carried off one hundred thousand of them
into Egypt. Here, of course, they were in daily contact with Egyptians and
Greeks, and gradually began to adopt their philosophical and religious
opinions, or to modify their own in harmony with them."
"To what side soever they turned, the
Jews came in contact with Greeks and with Greek philosophy, under one
modification or another. It was round them and among them; for small bodies
of that people were scattered through their own territories, as well as
through the surrounding provinces. It insinuated itself very slowly at
first; but stealing upon them from every quarter, and operating from age to
age, it mingled at length in all their views, and by the year 150 before
Christ, had wrought a visible change in their notions and habits of
thought."
We must either reject these imported
ideas, as heathen inventions, or we must admit that the heathen, centuries
before Christ, discovered that of which Moses had no idea. In other words
either uninspired men announced the future fate of sinners centuries before
inspired men knew anything.
JEWISH AND PAGAN
OPINIONS
At the time of Christ's advent
Jew and Pagan held Hades to be a place of torment after death, to endure
forever.
"The prevalent and distinguishing
opinion was, that the soul survived the body, that vicious souls would
suffer an everlasting imprisonment in Hadees, and that the souls of the
virtuous would both be happy there and in process of time obtain the
privilege of transmigrating into other bodies." (Campbell's Four
Gospels, Diss. 6, Pt. 2, & 19.) Of the Pharisees, Josephus says: "They also
believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that, under the
earth, there will be rewards and punishments, according as they lived
virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in
an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and
live again." (Antiquites, B. 18, Ch. 1, 3. Whiston's Tr.")
These doctrines are not found in the
Old Testament. They are of heathen origin. Did Jesus endorse them? Let us
consult all the texts in which he employed the heathen word Hades.
THRUST DOWN TO HADES
Matt. 11:23 and Luke 10:15,
"And you, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to
Hell." "And you, Capernaum, which are exalted to heaven, shall be thrust
down to Hell." Of course, a city never went to a place of torment after
death. The word is used here just as it is in Isa. 14, where Babylon is said
to be brought down to Sheol or Hades, to denote debasement, overthrow, a
prediction fulfilled to the letter. Dr. Clarke's interpretation is correct:
"The word here means a state of the utmost woe, and ruin, and desolation, to
which these impenitent cities should be reduced. This prediction of our Lord
was literally fulfilled; for, in the wars between the Romans and Jews, these
cities were totally destroyed; so that no traces are now found of Bethsaida,
Chorazin or Capernaum."
JESUS WENT TO HADES
That Hades is the kingdom of
death, and not a place of torment, after death, is evident from the language
of Acts 2:27, "You will not leave my soul in Hell: neither will you suffer
thy holy one to see corruption." Verse 31: "His soul was not left in Hell,
neither his flesh did see corruption," that is his spirit did not remain in
the state of the dead, until his body decayed. No one supposes that Jesus
went to a realm of torment when he died. Jacob wished to go down to Hades to
his son mourning, so Jesus went to Hades, the under-world, the grave. The
Apostle's Creed conveys the same idea, when it speaks of Jesus as descending
into Hell. He died, but his soul was not left in the realms of death, is the
meaning.
THE GATES OF HADES
Matt. 14:18, "And I say also
unto you, That you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and
the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." The word is here used as an
emblem of destruction. "The gates of Hades" means the powers of destruction.
It is the Savior's manner of saying that his church cannot be destroyed.
HADES IS ON EARTH
Rev. 6:8, "And I looked, and
behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell
followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the
earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the
beasts of the earth." All the details of this description demonstrates that
the Hell is on earth, and not in the future world.
The word also occurs in Rev 1:18, "I
am He that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen;
and have the keys of Hell and of death." To understand this passage
literally, with the popular view of Hell added, would be to represent Jesus
as the Devil's gate keeper. If Hell is a realm of torment, and the devil is
its king, and Jesus keeps the keys, what is he but the devil's janitor, or
turnkey? The idea is that Jesus defies death and the grave, evil,
destruction, and all that is denoted either literally or figuratively by
Hades, the under-world. Its gates open to him.
Cannon Farrar in Excursus II,
"Eternal Hope," observes: "Hell has entirely changed its old harmless sense
of 'the dim under-world,' and that, meaning as it how does, to myriads of
readers, 'a place of endless torment by material fire into which all
impenitent souls pass forever after death,' - it conveys meanings which are
not to be found in any word of the Old or New Testament for which it is
presented as an equivalent. In our Lord's language Capernaum was to be
thrust down, not 'to Hell,' but to the silence and desolation of the grave
(Hades); the promise that 'the gates of Hades' should not prevail against
the church is perhaps a distinct implication of her triumph even beyond
death in the souls of men for whom he died; Dives uplifts his eyes not 'in
Hell,' but in the intermediate Hades where he rests till the resurrection to
a judgment, in which signs are not wanting that his soul may have been
meanwhile ennobled and purified."
HADES DESTROYED
I Cor. 15:55, "O death, where
is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" This is parallel to Hos.
14:14, where the destruction of Hades is prophesied. Whatever Hades means,
it is not to endure forever. It is destined to be destroyed. It cannot be
endless torment. That its inhabitants are to be delivered from its dominion,
is seen from Rev. 20:13, "And Death and Hell delivered up the dead that were
in them." This harmonizes with the declaration of David, that he had been
delivered from it already. (Ps. 30:3; II Sam. 22:5,6). It does not retain
its victims always, and hence, whatever it may mean, it does not denote
endless imprisonment. Hence the next verse reads, "And death and Hell were
cast into the lake of fire." Can a more striking description of utter
destruction be given than this? Of course the language is all figurative,
and not literal. Hell here denotes evil and its consequences. It is in this
world, it opposes truth and human happiness, but it is to meet with a
destruction so complete that only a sea of fire can indicate the character
of its destruction.
Says Prof. Stuart: "The king of
Hades, and Hades itself, i.e., the region or domains of death, are
represented as cast into the burning lake. The general judgment being now
come, mortality having now been brought to a close, the tyrant death, and
his domains along with him, are represented as cast into the burning lake,
as objects of abhorrence and of indignation. They are no more to exercise
any power over the human race." Ex. Es. p. 133. '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 (Hades) he lifted up his
eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his
bosom." Luke 16:22, 23. If this is a literal history, as is sometimes
claimed, of the after-death experiences of two persons, then the good are
carried about in Abraham's bosom; and the wicked are actually roasted in
fire, and cry for water to cool their parched tongues. If these are
figurative, then Abraham, Lazarus, Dives and the gulf and every part of the
account are features of a picture, an allegory, as much as the fire and
Abraham's bosom. If it be history, then the good are obliged to hear the
appeals of the damned for that help which they cannot bestow! They are so
near together as to be able to converse across the gulf, not wide but deep.
It was this opinion that caused Jonathan Edwards to teach that the sight of
the agonies of the damned enhances the joys of the blest!
IT IS A PARABLE
1. The story is not fact but
fiction: in other words, a parable. This is denied by some Christians who
ask, Does not our Savior say: "There was a certain rich man?" etc. True, but
all his parables begin in the same way, "A certain rich man had two sons,
and the like.
In Judges 9, we read, "The trees went
forth, on a time, to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive
tree, Do you reign over us." This language is positive, and yet it describes
something that never could have occurred. All fables, parables, and other
fictitious accounts which are related to illustrate important truths, have
this positive form, to give force, point, life-likeness to the lessons that
they inculcate.
Dr. Whitby says: "That this is only a
parable and not a real history of what was actually done, is evident from
the circumstances of it, namely, the rich man lifting up his eyes in Hell
and seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, his discourse with Abraham, his
complaint of being tormented in flames, and his desire that Lazarus might be
sent to cool his tongue, and if all this be confessedly parable, why should
the rest be accounted history?" Lightfoot and Hammond make the same general
comments, and Wakefield remarks, "To them who regard the narrative a reality
it must stand as an unanswerable argument for the purgatory of the papists."
It occurs at the end of a chain of
parables. The Savior had been illustrating several principles by familiar
allegories, or parables. He had exhibited the unjustifiable murmurings of
the Pharisees, in the stories of the Lost Sheep and of the Lost Piece of
Silver, and the parable commencing the sixteenth chapter was directed to the
Scribes and Pharisees, that class of Jews being represented by the Unjust
Steward. They had been unfaithful and their Lord would shortly dismiss them.
The account says: "And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all
these things, and they derided him," showing, unequivocally, that the force
and power of his references were felt.
He continued to illustrate his
doctrines and gave to them a marked emphasis by his striking and beautiful
stories. He then struck into this parable designing not to relate an actual
incident but to exhibit certain truths by means of a story. It is clearly
absurd to say that he launched immediately from the figurative mode of
instruction in which he had all along been indulging, into a literal
exhibition of the eternal world, and without any notice of his changed mode
of expression, actually raised the veil that separates this life from the
future! He was not accustomed to teach in that way.
And this brings us to another proof
that this is a parable. The Jews have a book, written during the Babylonish
Captivity, entitled Gemara Babylonicum, containing doctrines entertained by
Pagans concerning the future state not recognized by the followers of Moses.
This story is founded on heathen views. They were not obtained from the
Bible, for the Old Testament contains nothing resembling them. They were
among those traditions which our Savior condemned when he told the Scribes
and Pharisees, "You make the word of God of none effect through your
traditions," and when he said to his disciples, "Beware of the leaven, or
doctrine of the Pharisees."
Our Savior seized the imagery of this
story, not to endorse its truth, but just as we now relate any other fable.
He related it as found in the Gemara, not for the story's sake, but to
convey a moral to his hearers; and the Scribes and Pharisees to whom he
addressed this and the five preceding stories, felt - as we shall see - the
force of its application to them.
Says Dr. Geo. Campbell: "The Jews did
not, indeed, adopt the pagan fables, on this subject, nor did they express
themselves entirely, in the same manner; but the general train of thinking
in both came pretty much to coincide. The Greek Hades they found well
adapted to express the Hebrew Sheol. This they came to conceive as including
different sorts of habitations, for ghosts of different characters." Now as
nothing resembling this parable is found in the Old Testament where did the
Jews obtain it, if not from the heathen?
The commentator, Macknight, Scotch
Presbyterian, says truly: "It must be acknowledged that our Lord's
descriptions are not drawn from the writings of the Old Testament, but have
a remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have
given. They represent the abodes of the blest as lying adjacent to the
region of the damned, and separated only by a great impassable gulf in such
sort that the ghosts could talk to one another from its opposite banks. If
from these resemblances it is thought the parable is formed on the Grecian
mythology, it will not at all follow that our Lord approved of what the
common people thought or spoke concerning these matters, agreeably to the
notions of Greeks. In parables, provided the doctrines instilled are
strictly true, the terms in which they are instilled may be such as are most
familiar to the people, and the images made use of are such as they are best
acquainted with."
DOES NOT TEACH
ENDLESS TORMENT
But if it were a literal
history, nothing could be gained for the terrible doctrine of endless
torment. It would oblige us to believe in literal fire after death but there
is not a word to show that such fire would never go out. We have heard it
claimed that the punishment of the rich man must be endless, because there
was gulf (chasm, chasma) fixed so that those who desired to could not cross
it. But were this a literal account, it would not follow that the gulf would
last always.
For are we not assured that the time
is coming when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill
shall be made low?" Isa. 40:4. When every valley is exalted what becomes of
the great gulf? And then there is exalted, what said of the duration of the
sufferings of the rich man. If the account be a history it must not militate
against the promise of "The restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of
all God's holy prophets since the world began." There is not a word
intimating that the rich man's torment was never to cease. So the doctrine
of endless misery is after all, not in the least taught here. The most that
can be claimed is that the consequences of sin extend into the future life,
and that is a doctrine that we believe just as strongly as can any one,
though we do not believe they will be endless, nor do we believe the
doctrine taught in this parable, nor in the Bible use of the word Hell.
But allowing for a moment that this
is intended to represent a scene in the spirit world, what a representation
we have! Dives is dwelling in a world of fire in the company of lost
spirits, hardened by the depravity that must possess the residents of that
world, and yet yearning in compassion for those on earth. Not totally
depraved, not harboring evil thoughts but benevolent, humane. Instead of
being loyal to the wicked world in which he dwells as anyone bad enough to
go there should be, he actually tries to prevent migration there from earth,
while Lazarus is entirely indifferent to everybody but himself. Dives seems
to have more mercy and compassion than does Lazarus.
THE TEACHING OF THE PARABLE
But what does the parable
teach? That the Jewish nation, and especially the Scribes and Pharisees were
about to die as a power, as a church, as a controlling influence in the
world; while the common people among them and the Gentiles outside of them
were to be exalted in the new order of things. The details of the parable
show this: "There was a certain rich man clothed in purple and fine linen."
In these first words, by describing their very costume, the Savior fixed the
attention of his hearers on the Jewish priesthood. They were emphatically
the rich men of that nation. His description of the beggar was equally
graphic. He lay at the gate of the rich, only asking to be fed by the crumbs
that fell from the table. Thus dependent were the common people, and the
Gentiles on the Scribes and Pharisees. We remember how Christ once rebuked
them for shutting up the kingdom of heaven against these. They lay at the
gate of the Jewish hierarchy. For the Gentiles were literally restricted to
the outer court of the temple. Therefore in Rev. 11:12 we read: "But the
court, which is without the temple, leave out, and measure it not, for it is
given unto the Gentiles." They could only walk the outer court, or lie at
the gate. We remember the anger of the Jews at Paul, for allowing Greeks to
enter the temple. This is the significance of the language of the
Canaanitish woman, Matt. 15:27, who desired the Savior to heal her daughter.
The Savior, to try her faith, said: It is not meet to cast the children's
bread to the dogs." She replied, "Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the
crumbs that fall from their Mater's table." The prophet (Isa. 1:6)
represents the common people of Israel as "full of wounds, bruises, and
putrifying sores." The brief, graphic descriptions given by the Savior, at
once showed his hearers that he was describing those two classes, the Jewish
priesthood and nation on the one hand and the common people, Jews and
Gentiles, on the other.
The rich man died and was buried.
This class died officially, nationally and its power departed. The kingdom
of God was taken from them and bestowed on others. The beggar died. The
Gentiles, publicans and sinners were translated into the kingdom of God's
dear son where is neither Jew nor Greek, but where all are one in Christ
Jesus. This is the meaning of the expression "Abraham's bosom." They
accepted the true faith and so became one with faithful Abraham. Abraham is
called the father of the faithful, and the beggar is represented to have
gone to Abraham's bosom, to denote the fact which is now history, that the
common people and Gentiles would accept Christianity and become Christian
nations, enjoying the blessing of the Christian faith.
What is meant by the torment of the
rich man? The misery of those proud men, when soon after their land was
captured and their city and temple possessed by barbarians, and they
scattered like chaff before the wind - a condition in which they have
continued from that day to this. All efforts to bless them with Christianity
have proved unavailing. At this very moment there is a great gulf fixed so
that there is no passing to and fro. And observe, the Jews do not desire the
gospel. Nor did the rich man ask to enter Abraham's bosom with Lazarus. He
only wished Lazarus to alleviate his sufferings by dipping his finger in
water and cooling his tongue. It is so with the Jews today. They do not
desire the gospel; they only ask those among whom they sojourn to tolerate
them and soften the hardships that accompany their wanderings. The Jewish
church and nation is now dead. Once they were exalted to heaven, but now
they are thrust down to Hades, the kingdom of death, and the gulf that yawns
between them and the Gentiles shall not be abolished till the fullness of
the Gentiles shall come in, and "then Israel shall be saved."
Lightfoot says: "The main scope and
design of it seems this: to hint the destruction of the unbelieving Jews,
who, though they had Moses and the prophets, did not believe them, nay would
not believe though one (even Jesus) arose from the dead."
The rich man or the Jews were
and are in the same Hell in which David was when he said: "The pains of Hell
(Hades) got hold on me, I found trouble and sorrow," and "you have delivered
my soul from the lowest Hell." Not in endless world in the future world, but
in misery and suffering in this. (For more on Lazarus and the rich man
see the Abraham's Bosom link below).
HADES IS TEMPORARY
But is this a final
condition? No, wherever we locate it, it must end. Paul asks the Romans,
"Have they (the Jews) stumbled that they should fall? God forbid! but rather
through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles." "For I would not,
brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be
wise in your own conceits, that blindness is in part happened to Israel
until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be
saved. As it is written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and
shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them
when I shall take away their sins."
Rom. 11:22, 25, 27.
In brief terms, then we may say that
this is a fictitious story or parable describing the fate in this world of
the Jewish and Gentile people of our Saviour's times, and has not the
slightest reference to the world after death, nor to the fate of mankind in
that world.
So that the instances (sixty-four) in
the Old Testament and (eleven) in the New, in all seventy-five in the Bible,
all perfectly agree in representing the word Hell, derived from the Hebrew
Sheol and the Greek Hades, as being in this world.
