NOTES ON HELL (GEHENNA)

When the clergy are confronted with the fact that the word “hell” in their favorite passages denotes a valley outside Jerusalem, they take upon themselves to say it was a type of a more dreadful place. The following notes will help the discerning to see the fallacy of this and reject the flimsy subterfuge as an invention of man-a deception practiced upon the ignorant. Hell (Gehenna) means the detestable place outside Jerusalem, and no other region, for the following reasons:

1. When Christ mentioned the danger of being “cast into hell” (Gehenna), all who heard him were familiar with the notorious locality; their minds would therefore be directed to the detestable valley he spoke of and which whey knew of by observation, for the Jews (even from foreign lands) went up to Jerusalem three times a year to worship the Lord; thereby all Jews were brought into the proximity of Gehenna periodically. Its ever burning fires were to their eyes reminders of its unsavory history from the days of Solomon, and a burning witness to their fathers’ vacillating obedience to the God of Israel, for the brazen god “Moloch” stood in Gehenna (translated hell) a long time, to which were paid living human sacrifices; innocent children in its fiery bowls were consumed in great numbers, while a short way up the hill to the north stood Solomon’s Temple in all its glory, dedicated to the one true GOD. For a long time murderous idolatry in Gehenna and worship of Jehovah in His Temple were contiguous systems (II Kings 17:41, 12:3, 23:13). The Jews knew this bit of history to be the cause of Gehenna’s defilement, and being defiled it became a place of corruption and descriptive of all that was vile and contemptible.

2. Jesus meant Gehenna, the detestable locality, and no other, because he never uses a qualifying adverb to direct the mind to another place like it. He uses the word Gehenna as a proper noun (for such it is); he speaks of it geographically, not adverbially. If Gehenna were only an illustration of a more dreadful place, Jesus would use an adverb to qualify it as being like that place; but there is no qualification nor comparison made. He spoke of it as local; the Jews knew of the place by the word he used ”ga-hinnom.”

3. Jews only are threatened with destruction in Gehenna (hell). The word is found in the discourses of Jesus to Jews. It cannot be found in Paul’s epistles to Gentiles, nor in any discourse or letter to Gentiles by any apostle. The punishment of the wicked is described to Gentiles in various ways, but locality is not identified as Gehenna is to the Jews. Doubtless Gentiles deserving punishment will find their fate wherever the wrath of God overtake them, for “The slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth” (Jer. 25:33); therefore it would be improper to speak of destroying Gentiles in Gehenna.

4. That Jesus meant the detestable place outside Jerusalem by the word Gehenna is proven by the “sure word of prophecy,” for its fires and worms are recalled into service in the age to come. The worshipers of the Lord at Jerusalem in that age of in-coming glory shall look upon the carcasses (dead bodies) of transgressors, where the worm will not die nor the fire be quenched, the detestable sight will be abhorrent to all flesh (Isa. 66:20, 23, 24). In this way the passers to and from Jerusalem (then restored) will see and learn by observation, that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And, peradventure, men will learn then to “fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast in hell (Gehenna)” Luke 12:5. For as long as there are to be found transgressors to be cast into hell – Gehenna – so long will the worm revel in their corruption, and the fires consume them into ashes and smoke. But after the new covenant is made with the restored house of Israel, then all of them (Jews), from the least to the greatest, shall know the Lord, for His law will be written in their hearts (compare Jer. 31:34 with Heb. 8:10-11) and all will be righteous, as saith the Lord (Isa. 60:21). After that there will be no need of Gehenna as a defiled place; but its very locality will become holy, for “The whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up nor thrown down any more for ever” Jer. 31:40. Notice this in the same chapter as the new covenant is spoken of, verses 33, 34:

Thus “The wise shall understand”
That even vile Gehenna shall become
A place of beauty in Jehovah’s hand.

W. Brittle

The Christadelphian Advocate, February 1889, pgs 38-39