Christian Message Boards: Hell a metaphor for the grave?

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Posted by David (Member # 1) on :

I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. ~ Revelation 1:18
There are three words translated “hell” in Scripture:

Gehenna (Greek): The place of punishment (Matthew 5:22,29; 10:28; and James 3:6)
Hades (Greek): The abode of the dead (Matthew 11:23; 16:18, Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27)
Sheol (Hebrew): The grave (Psalm 9:17; 16:10)

There are those who accept that hell is a place of punishment, but believe that the punishment is to be annihilated—to cease conscious existence. They can’t conceive that the punishment of the wicked will be conscious and eternal. If they are correct, then a man like Adolph Hitler, who was responsible for the deaths of millions, is being “punished” merely with eternal sleep. His fate is simply to return to the non-existent state he was in before he was born, where he doesn’t even know that he is being punished.

However, Scripture paints a different story. The rich man who found himself in hell (Luke 16:19–31) was conscious. He was able to feel pain, to thirst, and to experience remorse. He wasn’t asleep in the grave; he was in a place of “torment.”

If hell is a place of knowing nothing or a reference to the grave into which we go at death, Jesus' statements about hell make no sense. He said that if your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin, it would be better to remove it than to “go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43–48).

The Bible refers to the fate of the unsaved with such fearful words as the following:
“Shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2)
“Everlasting punishment” (Mathew 25:46)
“Weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51)
“Fire unquenchable” (Luke 3:17)
“Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish” (Romans 2:8,9)
“Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
“Eternal fire...the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 7,13)

Revelation 14:10,11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner: “He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night.”

From: The Evidence Bible - Ray Comfort

Posted by HisGrace (Member # 3438) on :

A sinful judgment is also referred to as "death" in the NT.

John 8:52 At this the Jews exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demonpossessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death.

Romans 6:16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey– whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death. or obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Romans 6:21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things which result in death.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in [ Or through] Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

1 Corinthians 15:55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

1 Corinthians 15:56 The sting of death is sin; the power of sin is the law.

Rev. 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.