This is one of the most controversial topics for both believers and non-believers. What makes it captivating is one reason, PEOPLE LOVE LIFE AND ARE MINDFUL ABOUT THE END. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not, death is a reality and one’s state after death is everyone’s concern. So the question is; Is there hell where the dead suffer? The irony in the belief is that people believe that they DIE and SUFFER as the DEAD!! Anyways let’s look at the issue briefly.
HELL ANTHROPOMORPHICALLY
Hell has served two purposes to our relationship with God. The first is that hell has contributed to our understanding of JUDGEMENT and we know that hell is God’s justice to sinners and all the pain these sinners have afflicted the will of God with is the same pain that will be applied to them in death or after death.
The second purpose that hell has served is to impart fear to the believers in the form of a scarecrow for intentions of motivating morality. Scaring people and helping them behave. This is not just for children but even adults. All this is good and in fact, many texts of the Bible are basically oriented to these two purposes.
I highly recommend that we avoid Judgement where we get what we deserve for if we are honest, we know that we don’t like what we deserve. If hell, therefore, is perceived as ruthless judgment exercised in the wrath of God, then woe unto us and we must avoid it.
Again, if our understanding of hell scares us to behave right, then Hallelujah, let us behave. And let us maintain that fear as long as that fear makes us do the right thing. Let us maintain it just as we have maintained the fear of our bosses and kept our jobs.
However, the two understandings of hell are anthropomorphic. Anthropomorphism is when we use cultural and human scenarios to explain divine or supernatural actions and resolutions. So Hell has majorly been understood from the human perspective of retribution {rewards and penalties} though it goes far beyond that.
It is anthropomorphic because in this understanding of hell, God is the parent and we are the children and he punishes the indolent children and rewards the upright. In this understanding, God is in charge of Hell and he has put it in place specifically for these kinds of children.
This is the danger of the anthropomorphic understanding of Scriptures concerning hell.
And this is why we need an alternative understanding of the issue if we are to be consistent in our reasoning and belief.
THEOLOGY OF HELL
My thesis on this is that. The existence or absence of hell can be better understood based on how we perceive the origin.
Genesis 1 all things including humanity are created EX-NIHILO {out of nothing}.
Not one thing that God created out of any materialistic raw-material (The narrative of Genesis 2:1-20 where man is exhibited as being created from dust and the woman from a man’s rib communicates not creation {origin} but different Theologies altogether.
God created all (things, animals and people) by (not from) his WORD. Note that I used BY not FROM because I intend to communicate to you that the WORD of GOD was not a RAW MATERIAL FROM which he created from but rather it was a POWER BY which he spoke absence into presence.
I don’t know whether I will be understood, but here is what I have concluded after reading the theology of HELL (SHEOL/HADES).
HELL IS OUR ORIGINAL STATE What I mean by originality here is WHO we were pre-the active word of God that operated us into existence. Have we ever asked ourselves WHO WE WERE PRE-CREATION?
Jeremiah 1:5 gives us a glimpse by saying that in the omniscience {Divine eternal knowledge} of God, he knew us before he formed us into the belly of our mothers.
From this perspective, we can argue that we existed (in God) before our physical presence (womb and at birth) on planet earth in God’s mind or actually in reality. In a sense, you were not an afterthought. But even then, we ask; who were we pre-existence {even with God}?
The answer I can come up is we were nowhere and no one in eternity and that is our original state: ABSENCE/NOTHINGNESS was the original state PRE-CREATION and that is what we have termed as HELL.
Hell is not a place where the DEAD are LIVING and EXPERIENCING a particular kind of ‘life’. Hell is a state of absentia, it is when you are nothing, no more and nowhere in eternity and nowhere in God’s omnipresence and omniscience.
Hell is when you vanish. So it is not a transition from earth to a more painful place forever, it is vanishing forever.
If you are scared of suffering, it is a contradiction for the dead do not suffer. If you are scared to be no more in eternity, then you have the right reasons.
Priest Isaiah-White
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 