Van  Harvy uses Mark 9:43-48 to say that there is no doubt that Jesus warns of an “unquenchable fire of Gahenna” (Hell) and that the New Testament clearly teaches a judgement and separation of the righteous and unrighteous. I would say this is true. But in the light of the whole Bible’s teaching what does it mean?

     Does it mean God is vindictive? No!Absolutely not! If it did the major teaching of theBible about God’s redeeming love is a lie. One must interpret Hell in a way that is true to God’s clear love and to the Bible’s whole prfogressive revalation of God’s loving character.

      Is Hell a literal place? No! Both it and Heaven are symbols for states of being. The description of both is clearly symbolic.

      Look at Mark 9:43-49, a passage full of symbolic language and hyperbole. Does Jesus literally want us to cut off our hand, our foot, and pluck out our eye if we have sinned with them? No! This is symbolic hyperbole picturing how radically dedicated we must be to live a pure, that is, singularly devoted righteous life.

     The word for Hell here is Gahenna as it is in almost every referenceto Hell by Jesus in the gospels. Gahenna literally is the Jerusalem garbage dump outside the city in a deep valley where there was always a fire burning and worms eating the refuse.

     Jesus here is giving a serious warning that our behavior has consequences. To live unrighteously is wasting your life and waste winds up in a garbage dump and no sensible person wants that.

     A great metaphor of judgement and Hell is the Steve McQueen movie “Pepillion” (sic). In solitary confinement on a French prison island McQueen dreams of his judgement. In a barren desert he faces a black robed tribunal and shouts, “I did not murder that man!”

     A somber judge replies, “We know you didn’t, but you are here for a far greater crime. You are guilty of wasting your life.”

      Bowing his head in shame, self-disgust, and anger (the fires of Hell), McQueen mutters, “You’ve got that right; I have certainly done that.” Now that is Hell and the Fires of Hell.

       Any punishment God gives will be for the purpose of seeing oneself with proper awareness as McQueen did. If that occurs can we doubt that the prodigal sinner seeing God’s love as it is would not repent and call upon the Lord? Then can we doubt that the Lord would not save as He has always done for all who call upon Him? At the very least should we not hope that this is the purpose of judgement and Hell?

     If the medieval church had not believed in an infinite, irrevocable Hell of torture and pain from the wrath of God would they have dared to carry out the tortures of the Inquisition? Which father were they imitating, God or the Devil?

     I like Paul Tilloch’s statement for summing up the New Testament’s emphasis on Hell. “Hell is a possibility but never a necessity.” Fundamentalism makes it a necessity because it has hate where love should be.

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