In the time of Jesus the Valley of Hinnom was used as the garbage dump of Jerusalem. Into it were thrown all the filth and garbage of the city, including the dead bodies of animals and executed criminals. To consume all this, fires burned constantly. Maggots worked in the filth. When the wind blew from that direction over the city, its awfulness was quite evident. At night wild dogs howled as they fought over the garbage.

Jesus used this awful scene as a symbol of hell. In effect he said, “Do you want to know what hell is like? Look at Gehenna.” So hell may be described as God’s “cosmic garbage dump.” All that is unfit for heaven will be thrown into hell.

The word Gehenna occurs 12 times in the New Testament. Each time it is translated as “hell.”

With the exception of James 3:6, it is used only by Jesus (Matthew 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5). In Matthew 5:22; 18:9; and Mark 9:47, it is used with “fire” as “hell fire.” So the word “hell” (Gehenna) as a place of punishment is used in the New Testament by Him who is the essence of infinite love.

In Mark 9:46 and 48, hell is described as a place where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” Repeatedly Jesus spoke of outer darkness and a furnace of fire, where there will be wailing, weeping, and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28). Obviously this picture is drawn from Gehenna.

The Book of Revelation describes hell as “a lake of fire burning with brimstone”  (Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14–15; 21:8). Into hell will be thrown the beast and the false prophet (Revelation 19:20). At the end of the age the devil himself will be thrown into it, along with death and Hades and all whose names are not in the Book of Life. “And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10b).

Because of the symbolic nature of the language, some people question whether hell consists of actual fire. Such reasoning should bring no comfort to the lost. The reality is greater than the symbol. The Bible exhausts human language in describing heaven and hell. The former is more glorious, and the latter more terrible, than language can express.

So far we've established that hell is “the place of eternal torment” and that it is described as: “everlasting fire” in Matthew 25:41; “everlasting punishment” in Matthew 25:46; “outer darkness” in Matthew 8:12; “everlasting destruction” in 2 Thessalonians 1:9; and “the Lake of fire” in Revelation 19:20.

Hell was prepared for “the Devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41); "the wicked" (Revelation 21:8); "the disobedient" (Romans 2:8, 9); for "fallen angels" (2 Peter 2:4); "the Beast and the false prophet" (Revelation 19:20); "worshipers of the beast" (Revelation 14:11); and "Rejecters of the Gospel" (Matthew 10:15).

The punishment of hell is described as: “bodily” (Matthew 5:29, 30); “in the soul” (Matthew 10:28); and “with varying degrees” (Matthew 23:14).

Looking even deeper into the biblical history of Hell, The Third Edition of the New Bible Dictionary illuminates us even more:

HELL. ‘Hell’ in the NT renders the Gk. word transliterated as ‘Gehenna’ (Mt. 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mk. 9:43, 45, 47; Lk. 12:5; Jas. 3:6). The name is derived from the Heb. gê(ben)(benê) hinnōm, the Valley of (the son[s] of Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem (Jos. 15:8; 18:16), where children were sacrificed by fire in connection with pagan rites (2 Ki. 23:10; 2 Ch. 28:3; 33:6; Je. 7:31; 32:35). Its original derivation is obscure, but Hinnom is almost certainly the name of a person. In later Jewish writings Gehenna came to mean the place of punishment for sinners (Assumption of Moses 10:10; 2 Esdras 7:36). It was depicted as a place of unquenchable fire—the general idea of fire to express the divine judgment is found in the OT (Dt. 32:22; Dn. 7:10). The rabbinic literature contains various opinions as to who would suffer eternal punishment. The ideas were widespread that the sufferings of some would be terminated by annihilation, or that the fires of Gehenna were in some cases purgatorial (Rosh Hashanah 16b-17a; Baba Mezi’a 58b; Mishnah Eduyoth 2. 10). But those who held these doctrines also taught the reality of eternal punishment for certain classes of sinners. Both this literature and the Apocryphal books affirm belief in an eternal retribution (cf. Judith 16:17; Psalms of Solomon 3:13).

The teaching of the NT endorses this past belief. The fire of hell is unquenchable (Mk. 9:43), eternal (Mt. 18:8), its punishment is the converse of eternal life (Mt. 25:46). There is no suggestion that those who enter hell ever emerge from it. However, the NT leaves the door open for the belief that while hell as a manifestation of God’s implacable wrath against sin is unending, the existence of those who suffer in it may not be. It is difficult to reconcile the ultimate fulfilment of the whole universe in Christ (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20) with the continued existence of those who reject him. Some scholars have contended that an eternal punishment is one which is eternal in its effects; in any case eternal does not necessarily mean never-ending, but implies ‘long duration extending to the writer’s mental horizon’ (J. A. Beet). On the other hand Rev. 20:10 does indicate conscious, never-ending torment for the devil and his agents, albeit in a highly symbolic passage, and some would affirm that a similar end awaits human beings who ultimately refuse to repent. In any case, nothing should be allowed to detract from the seriousness of our Lord’s warnings about the terrible reality of God’s judgment in the world to come.

In Jas. 3:6 Gehenna, like the bottomless pit in Rev. 9:1ff.; 11:7, appears to be the source of evil on the earth.

NT imagery concerning eternal punishment is not uniform. As well as fire it is described as darkness (Mt. 25:30; 2 Pet. 2:17), death (Rev. 2:11), destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord (2 Thes. 1:9; Mt. 7:21–23), and a debt to pay (Mt. 5:25–26).

In 2 Pet. 2:4 only, we find the Verb tartaroō, translated in RSV ‘cast into hell’, and rendered by the Pesh. ‘cast down to the lower regions’. Tartaros is the classical word for the place of eternal punishment but is here applied to the intermediate sphere of punishment for fallen angels.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. J. A. Beet, The Last Things, 1905; S. D. F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 1907; J. W. Wenham, The Goodness of God, 1974; H. Bietenhard, NIDNTT 2, pp. 205–210; J. Jeremias, TDNT 1, pp. 9f., 146–149, 657f.      D.K.I. 

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