The Bible Hell, J.W. Hanson, Kenroy Hunter [black female authors txt] 📗

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 Hadees to his son mourning, so Jesus went to Hadees, 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 HADEES

Matt. 14: 18 "And I say also unto thee, That thou art 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 Hadees" means the powers of destruction. It is the Savior's manner of saying that his church cannot be destroyed.

HADEES 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 liveth, 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 Hadees, 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 (Hadees); the promise that 'the gates of Hadees' 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 Hadees 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."

HADEES DESTROYED

I Cor. 15: 55: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" This is parallel to Hos. 14: 14, where the destruction of Hadees is prophesied. Whatever Hadees 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 se of fire can indicate the character of its destruction.

Says Prof. Stuart: "The king of Hadees, and Hadees 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 (Hadees) 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, reign thou 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 cogency 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 vail 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, "Ye 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