Since the beginnings of Christian theology, people have recognized the tension between some of the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament versus the revelation of God in Christ.

We like to pretend that these views are not contradictory. We’ve created a dance of fancy theological footwork to merge the image of violence with the image of peace. We try to say it’s not “contradiction”, and use words like “paradox” and “mystery” instead. We say things like “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”

All the while, we know it doesn’t add up. The reality is that we see two opposing portraits of God in the scriptures: a violent God of wrath slaughtering his enemies and commanding his people to do the same, and Jesus… saying his Father is kind to the ungrateful and wicked, saying he loves his enemies and commanding us to do the same.

While I can’t claim to perfectly resolve this dilemma, my goal today is to provide a compelling case for why Jesus is, as Paul describes, “the image of the invisible God,” and THE standard by which all other images of God must be held accountable.

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No matter where you look, you can’t convincingly defend the idea of eternal torment through Scripture.

Last week, we looked at every single time the Bible mentions “Hell”, and we discovered that, in essence, it doesn’t. While there are 4 words that are sometimes translated as “Hell”, none of them actually mean anything resembling our modern concept of Hell.

BUT… as many of our intelligent readers were quick to point out, showing the word “Hell” is missing from the Bible does not conclusively prove the concept of Hell is not present in the Bible.

So that’s what we’ll be looking at today – the other parts – the Biblical passages that seem to suggest eternal torment without using the word “Hell”. We’ll cover:

1. Weeping, Gnashing of Teeth & Outer Darkness
2. The Parable of the Sheep & The Goats
3. The Parable of Lazarus & The Rich Man (featuring Brad Jersak)
4. Revelation & The Lake of Fire
5. Paul’s “Everlasting Destruction” In 2 Thessalonians

Plus, we’ll take a look at a key word in John 3:16 that is mistranslated!

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Hell is not a Biblical concept.

Much of the Bible is debatable. Much of the Bible is open to numerous interpretations. There are many theological stances that can be convincingly argued both for AND against.

The modern concept of Hell as a place of eternal conscious torment is not one of them. Today, we are going to look at every mention of “Hell” in the Bible, and we are going to demonstrate this conceptual staple of Western Christianity to be virtually untenable.

But don’t get me wrong… I believe in Hell.

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I’ve been a “Charismatic” my entire life. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. I’ve seen the awe-inspiring and the cringe-worthy. I’ve seen the real and the fake.

Today, I’m trying to sum up some of my observations, because I believe a healthy approach to supernatural healing is profoundly important for the future of the Church.

Let me open with a big fat clarification that many of my observations are cumulative generalizations based on a wide range of experiences. I am not attempting to judge the heart of specific individuals or ministries, and no, I am not subtly referring to ________ who you personally dislike.

With that said, let’s get started.

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“Don’t worry, God is in control.”

Does that phrase sound familiar? Maybe you heard it after you got laid off from a job or after a family member passed away. Perhaps someone encouraged you with that idea during a very hard financial season. It’s easy to find solace in this ideology – that there is a God out there who is in utter control of the workings of your life, especially when you’re feeling a bit out of control.

But if we follow this line of thinking, it leads us to another question, “If God is exerting absolute control on the Earth, is He responsible for all the evil things happening as well? Is every abuse and violation also a part of His ‘Perfect Will’?”

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“God is too holy to look upon sin.”

If you grew up in the Evangelical church, or are otherwise familiar with mainstream Evangelical theology, you have probably heard this statement at one point or another.

It is plucked from the book of Habakkuk and often excluded from its context, typically with the goal of instilling in people a sense of distance from God – as if he is too good to even look at them.

“God is too holy to be around sinners,” they say.

The idea is that God’s holiness entails a powerful disgust and anger with humanity and a general inability to corrupt his pure eyes by even looking upon us, so vile are we! He must avoid us like the plague.

It’s as if God in his perfect Heaven hasn’t built up an immunity to a fallen world. He can’t even be around that stuff! It could contaminate or corrupt him! If you are God, you just can’t be around a fallen world!

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