HELL

The Lord Jesus described this as "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt.25:42).

issues are more misrepresented in the history of Christianity than this!

References to Hell in the Bible, depending upon the translation, should be of the word gehenna (γεεννα) derived from the Hebrew Ge-Hinnom, the valley of Hinnom.

Unfortunately, older translations of the Bible translated the old Testament word she'ôl (שׁאול), and New Testament word hades (ᾅδης), as 'hell', when they both simply mean the place of the deceased, and have no direct reference to any judgment of God as the word 'hell' has, unless death itself is seen as judgment, as it sometimes is.

The word for the Biblical Hell is primarily a New Testament word derived from Israel's history of disobedience.

is derived from the name of a valley ('valley of the son of Hinnom' 2 Chron.28:3) where certain kings of Judah reinstituted human sacrifice as had been practiced by the Canaanites before them, primarily of infant children. The horror of those acts, and the rightful judgment of God upon Jerusalem for it, made the place itself to be associated with absolute repugnance and so it became the refuse/garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem.

The statement of Jesus under the article heading above is very significant.

God is absolutely just. Therefore recognition of differences-of-degree in responsibility for actions are necessarily part of His absolute justice.

In other words, God is fair; even to Satan and to every one of his servants. They were not made evil. They chose against the intrinsic character of the Creator, which is love, and in varying degrees gave themselves to damage, to deceive, and to destroy that which is good for their own perceived benefit.

Jesus referred to it as "the hell of fire" ('γεενναν του πυρος', Matt.5:22), "eternal fire" ('πυρ το αιωνιον', Matt.18:8), and also quotes Isaiah (66:24) in describing Hell as "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:48). In fact Jesus told us more about it than any other single source.

Both 'worm' and 'fire' are metaphors as much as the term gehenna itself. The rubbish dump of the city was a place where fire always smoldered in its refuse/garbage and worms (the larvae of flies) constantly fed upon the corpses of dead animals and other decaying matter. This unpleasant image is used by Jesus to express the inexpressible – the eternal destination of those who have not only violated the essential character of God but have despised His mercy available to all those who turn from the evil (repent).

Satan and his angels are the most obvious illustration of the future occupants of this state, because their choice to do evil was then unprecedented and in full knowledge of the character of what they were choosing to do, by contrast with their Creator whom they knew.

The Apostle Paul, previously a persecutor of the Christian Church, states "I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief" (1 Tim.1:13). Even in human society, ignorance is viewed judicially as a mitigating factor in guilt for a crime. Satan and his hordes had no ignorance of any kind, for as part of God's administration of the universe they saw from God's angle of view, a morally unpolluted universe, and the quality of divine character which they were directly setting themselves to contradict. Therefore for them there is no repentance because their own deliberate choice so hardened them against any desire to repent.

repentance is not a fear of Hell. True repentance is not a desire to escape the consequences of one's actions. True repentance abhors the deed committed because of the nature of the deed!

Apologising because someone has been caught out is not repentance, It does not change the direction of the inner person, as true repentance does. Preachers need to remember this. Fear of Hell does not motivate salvation. Fear of consequences may cause a person to reconsider their situation, but beyond repentance their salvation is based on faith in God beyond themselves.

beyond limit is available for the truly repentant, for those who hearts agree with God concerning the nature of their actions and the state in which it has left them.

For this reason, from before the beginning of creation the Creator was willing to pay the price of justice Himself for the truly repentant.

For this reason, Jesus Christ is described in the concluding book of the Bible as the Lamb of God who was slain "from the foundation of the world" (Rev.13:8).