The Bad Place Or, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Hell… but Were Afraid to Ask

The Bad Place Or, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Hell… But were Afraid to Ask. [Half Title Page] [This page is blank] The Bad Place Or, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Hell… But were Afraid to Ask. By J. Webb Mealy ©2016, All Rights Reserved [Title Page] [Publisher, Copyright, and Library of Congress information page] 8 Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you. 9 You will make them like a fiery furnace when you appear. The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them. 10 You will destroy their offspring from the earth, and their children from among humankind. 11 If they plan evil against you, if they devise mischief, they will not succeed. (Ps. 21:8-11) [epigraph] [this page is blank] Contents Introduction: What This Book Is and How to Read It 9 Who This Book is For 9 Where We’re Going in This Book 9 How I Came to Write This Book 9 What You Will Find in This Book 11 About the Scripture Versions Used 11 How to Use the Strong’s Numbers in the Footnotes 12 Chapter 1 “The Simple Ones”: Four Famous “Hell” Verses That Don’t Actually Teach Everlasting Torment 13 Why We are Talking about This Now 13 Simple One #1: “Gehenna, where ‘their worm doesn’t die, and the fire doesn’t get put out’…” 14 Simple One #2: “…go into Gehenna—into the fire that can’t be put out” 18 Simple One #3: “Out there there’s going to be people crying and grinding their teeth” 20 Simple One #4: The Rich Man Agonizes in the Flames of “Hell” 23 What We’ve Learned in this Chapter from Looking at “the Simple Ones” 24 Chapter 2 The First Part of the Eschatological Puzzle: The Changing of the Ages in the Bible 25 The Changing of the Ages in the Old Testament 25 What We Have Learned from OT Passages That Look Ahead to a Changing of the Ages 43 The Changing of the Ages in the New Testament 45 The Changing of the Ages in the Gospels 46 The Changing of the Ages in the NT Epistles and Revelation 52 What We’ve Learned in This Chapter 55 Chapter 3 Resurrection, Judgment, and the Changing of the Ages in the NT Gospels and Epistles 56 Resurrection, Judgment, and the Age to Come in the Synoptic Gospels 56 Judgment, Resurrection, and the Coming Age of God’s Reign through Jesus Christ in the NT Epistles 62 1. What Happens to the Faithful Who are Living When Jesus Comes? 64 2. What Happens to Those Who are Living Unrepentant Lives on Earth When Jesus Comes? 67 3. What Ultimate Fate Awaits Those Judged and Slain or Judged and Found Unworthy of Resurrection at Jesus Christ’s Second Coming? 71 Chapter 4 Resurrection and Judgment in Isaiah 24–27 and Revelation 19–20 73 Introduction to Isaiah 24–27 73 Summary of Isaiah 24–27 89 Introduction to Revelation 19–20 92 Reading our Text within the Larger Story of Revelation 17:1–22:6 93 Chapter 5 Passages in the New Testament Gospels and Epistles about the Final Fate of the Unrepentant 117 Passages about “Crying and Teeth-Grinding” (Traditionally, “Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth”) 118 New Testament “Gehenna” Passages 122 Passages That Picture a Long Period of Imprisonment 126 Passages Involving Judgment with Fiery Results for the Unrepentant 128 Summary and Conclusion of This Chapter’s Results 138 Chapter 6 “The Hard Ones”: The Only Two Passages in the Bible that Actually Talk about Everlasting Torment 140 Taking a Close Look at Rev. 14:9-12 140 Five Principles for Deciding Whether to Take Things “Literally” 145 Applying the Five Principles for Determining “Literalness” 147 Concluding Remarks on “The Hard Ones” 152 Conclusion 154 The Fight for the High Ground of “Taking it Literally” 154 “Everlasting Hell Exists Because God is Righteous and Holy!” 156 “If Hell Doesn’t Exist, What’s the Point of Evangelism?” 160 “If a Second Chance Exists, What’s the Point of Converting?” 161 Final Words of Encouragement 162 Introduction: What This Book Is and How to Read It Don’t be afraid of people who kill the body, but can’t kill the soul. Be more afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna. (Mt. 10:28) Who This Book is For This book is for Christians who love God and love the Bible, and who want to understand exactly what the Bible teaches about the ultimate fate of the unrepentant. It’s also for non-Christians and former Christians who feel that they could never believe in Jesus, if that means that they have to believe in an everlasting hell. Does something seem wrong about the idea that God’s eternal plan is to torment the majority of his creatures forever? That’s because there is something wrong with it—something deeply wrong. No matter how “traditional” or commonly believed it is, the idea of unending torment simply cannot be reconciled with the loving and just character of God that has been revealed to us by Jesus and his apostles. Does that leave us with a Bible and a Christian faith with a huge contradiction in it? No it doesn’t. It leaves us with a challenge: to look deeply and fearlessly at the passages that supposedly encourage this idea, and see for ourselves what they say. When we have looked squarely at all the biblical evidence, we can then decide whether we think that we’re forced, if we believe in the Bible as the definitive revelation of God’s will, to believe in everlasting torment. Where We’re Going in This Book In this book we are going to look carefully at everything that Jesus and the writers of the New Testament have to say about the ultimate fate of the unrepentant. We are going to proceed step by step, so that by the end the matter will be clear, and there will be no unpleasant surprises. This is no trifling matter, to say the least. For that reason, we’re going to be thorough and unflinching in our study. Nothing is going to be swept under the carpet. If you read this book with care and patience, you will have a solid biblical answer for yourself and for everyone you talk to who believes that the Bible predicts everlasting fiery torment for the lost. How I Came to Write This Book I am a Christian, a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ. God’s grace enabled me to come to a personal and life-changing faith in Jesus as a young man of 18. Since that moment, I have always loved reading the Bible, and have read it cover to cover 10 Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Hell… many, many times. I have always been struck by the fact that the overwhelming majority of Bible passages do not threaten the unrepentant with unending torment, but rather with the devastating tragedy of being refused entry to eternal life. I have found myself meditating on this fact, and wondering how to make sense of the handful of disturbing passages that seem to picture a fate of everlasting torment. I had a breakthrough insight in my senior year of college, while I was writing a paper about the millennium in the book of Revelation. As I pondered John’s words, I suddenly realized (1) that the book of Revelation contains the one and only Bible passage that explicitly speaks of unending torment for unrepentant human beings (see Rev. 14:9-11), and (2) that Revelation itself also puts forward an entirely different vision of the ultimate fate of the unrepentant. The last great rebellion of Rev. 20:7-10, paralleled by Isa. 26:10–27:5 and Heb. 10:27, pictures the resurrection, judgment, and annihilation of the unrepentant. I meditated for many years on Revelation’s double picture of the end, and I ultimately presented my insights systematically in After the Thousand Years: Resurrection and Judgment in Revelation 20.1 That book currently stands as the single most thorough and detailed explanation of Revelation 20 ever published. Supplementing this study, I have recently published The End of the Unrepentant: A Study of the Biblical Themes of Fire and Being Consumed.2 That book covers similar ground to the one you are now reading, except that it looks closely at every relevant passage in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament. It is about 300 pages long, and I wanted to write a shorter version for people who don’t have the time to trudge through so much material. If you want the long version, you can read The End of the Unrepentant; if you want the short version, this is it. I held the intention for many years to write on this topic, and I finally decided it was time to do it in 2011. I made up my mind to begin writing after the publication of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins.3 In it, he dared to say that a Christian would be in good company among the honored theologians of the Christian faith if they felt uneasy about the idea that God will torment people forever.4 In return for his honesty, Bell was subjected to a firestorm of criticism by evangelicals. He was the object of what can only be called a massive religious rage, and was branded as a dangerous heretic and false teacher.

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