Afterlife of the Literal and Figurative

Every few years a new charlatan comes around to inform us that the church has misunderstood matters of the eternal state or the intermediate state. Sometimes this has to do with the literal belief in hell, and other times about the “holding place” of Old Testament saints. A very popular Emergent Church leader a few years ago wrote that Jesus only taught hell so clearly for the same reason that our parents tell us stories of Santa Clause—that is, to keep us all in line. Such reasoning can range from the perverse to the merely uninformed. However one misdirection that seems to have some academic air to it is to point to the imagery that the biblical authors shared with the pagans around them. The idea is that because concepts like Sheol and Hades, were either perfectly pagan, or that Gehenna was a perfectly natural piece of their surroundings in Jerusalem, that the whole notion of these as eternal states loses their literal qualities.

Sheol

It is common to hear that the expectation of resurrection and eternal life is a New Testament development, or at least that it arose in the post-exilic community. A prevailing thesis is that Greek philosophy brought the concepts of immortality and retribution, whereas Eastern thought added the notion of rebirth. This confluence of ideas in the centuries leading up to Christ translated into the doctrines of resurrection, final judgment, and eternal state that the New Testament authors inherited, though a recent study by Greenspoon rejects Eastern influence [1].

An essay by Old Testament scholar T. Desmond Alexander entitled “The Old Testament View of Life After Death” gives a succinct analysis of the different views that have been held about what the ancient Jews really believed.

In taking a view, one has to first determine whether or not there is a coherent, single picture throughout the Old Testament. The various meanings of the word for  “death” (mawet) must be taken into consideration: 1. biological, 2. mythological, 3. symbolical, and 4. local. Now the word Sheol occurs only 65 times in the Old Testament, yet rarely at all outside of the Hebrew canon, which should guard us against too much comparison to any supposed cognates or neighboring concepts in the ANE. There have been four basic views taken about Sheol.

First, there is the view of L. R. Bailey who is content to divide the biblical categories into a good death and bad death based on the circumstances surrounding one’s death. Failure to see any higher principle mediating the consequences of death translates into a view of Sheol in which 1. death is natural and that 2. it affects the righteous and wicked in essentially the same way. Alexander rejects this. Given that what distinguishes between a good and bad death is something above and beyond this life, it follows that the Hebrew orientation toward earthly life and death must excel them both.  

Second, Sheol is viewed as a place where all go, but the righteous and wicked are segregated upon arrival. There is a strand, rooted in the Book of Enoch, holding to four levels of this underworld. Acts 2:27-31, Eph. 4:9, and 1 Pet. 3:19 have even been cited to support this. Alexander counters that the Hebrew words used to support different compartments are better understood as synonyms for Sheol, which also undercuts the use of those New Testament texts.

Third, the view of R. L. Harris is that Sheol is a synonym for the grave. Harris proposes this as a solution to the contradiction with New Testament teaching that would arise from the notion of the righteous and wicked cohabiting the same eternal state. Alexander objects that this is unlikely because the Hebrew word appears without a definite article, suggesting a proper name, and descriptions of this realm that resemble a grave may only do so because the grave was the only thing observable and so a suitable symbol. 

Fourth, Sheol is viewed as the Nether World by A. Heidel. He is clear that this “subterranean realm of the spirits, applies to the habitation of the souls of the wicked only” (43). But as Alexander points out, this makes Heidel’s exegesis arbitrary, as the same word Sheol means this underworld when it is the wicked yet not the righteous. Some verses can be understood as righteous men expecting to descend to Sheol. At best it is inconclusive. 

Alexander treats the second and third view as improbable, leaving a choice between whether the Hebrews believed all men went to Sheol or only the wicked. Against the first view, Alexander positions the Genesis account to show that death is not natural but punitive (2:17, 3:3-4), the expectation of reward in Psalm 49, premature deaths often viewed as deliverance from evils in this life (2 Ki. 22:20); and of course the law treating death as a contaminant (Lev. 11). If the Jews did think all must go to Sheol, they expected the resurrection of the righteous. 

Gehenna and Hades

The word Gehenna in the New Testament is derived from the Hebrew ge hinnom, which referred to the valley of Hinnom (Josh. 15:8; 18:16), where Molech worship and its child sacrifice came in under the wicked reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh. 

Two explanations are given in Jewish tradition for why this place became symbolic of the place of the damned. One is that since Josiah had destroyed the abominations there, it was declared unclean; while the other adds that this became essentially a dump for trash that would be burned. However the reduction of hellfire to a temporal trash heap wears thin the more one hears how plain Jesus is in his own words about hell.

Bavinck says that this Gehenna was “distinct from hades (ᾅδης, hadés), the underworld (φύλακη, phylake), and the pit (ἄβυσσος, abyssos) but identical with the furnace of fire (κάμινος τοῦ πυρός, kaminos tou pyros; Matt. 13:42, 50) and the lake of fire (λίμνη τοῦ πυρὸς, limne you pyros; Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 14-15; 21:8)” [2].

Now what do all of these have in common? A pit, a furnace, and a lake of fire. One is dark and inescapable, another the source of the most terrible form of pain, and then the addition of the body of water recalls the fears the ancients had of the turbulent sea. Notice there is “no more sea” in the new world (Rev. 21:1). What is happening here is the emergence of a truth by the accumulation of perspectives.

What the Imagery-Hang-ups Ignore

Although the words originate from different reference points, just like other truths in Scripture, diverse words and images can be used to describe different aspects of the same thing. Hence those two about damnation can highlight both the eternal death aspect (hades) and the curse and burning aspect (Gehenna). We get a sense of the same lack of nuance in our thinking when we hear about “Abraham’s bosom.” Many have the idea that this is a place and various questions about the present whereabouts of Old Testament saints assume it. However, the notion is gathered from a single text, in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus:

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side (Lk. 16:22).

The point is not to suggest that a truth is less true if it is only taught in one verse. Rather, it is that this verse does not have such a “teaching” in view. It is a parable. There are several elements in the account that other Scripture would tell us cannot be the case, such as conversations between that realm and others (a fact directly pointed out in the story!). To be at “Abraham’s side” is none other than to be included in his family, as heirs with Christ in the covenant of grace. It is as Jesus said elsewhere, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 8:11).

Very often the Bible will mix imagery of biblical theology with things borrowed from nature—and yes, even things believed by the pagans—because at the end of the day, it is not God borrowing from the pagans, but the other way around. Awareness of natural modes of speech comes with embracing the totality of nature as God’s property, and then observance of that good old fashioned principle called the analogy of faith: that is, interpreting the less clear passages in light of the more clear.

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1. T. Desmond Alexander, The Old Testament View of Life after Death,” Themelios 11 (1986), 43.

2. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Reformed Dogmatics, IV:703