Basic HTML Version
ern belief in the immo rtal ity of
the soul. 1 have before me, a copy
of the
Phaedo,
and in the intro–
ductory pages,
1
read this about
Plato: " In fact, he acknowledges
... three
kinds
of gods: superior ,
inferior , and intermedia te. "
There
is the general statement
of the popular belief about hell ,
a nd where that beli ef ca rn e
from- actually from the imagina–
tions o f pagans who knew not
God!
What About the Millio n s
of Heathen?
Now, before we examine the com–
mon idea about heJI to see wheth–
er it is TRUE,
1
want you to con–
s ider one or two FACTS: See whe re
this concept of hell , if true, leads
us! On this earth are sorne 4 ,500
million people. The most POPU–
LOUS lands are China, India and
other parts of Asia. In spi te of
m issionari es from the W est,
actually
more than half
of all the
people on this earth
have never so
much as
HEARD the ONLY name
by whic h men may be SAV ED- the
name of Jesus CHRIST! Now is
there sorne
other
way by which
men may be saved ? The Bible
says there is NOT!
That means tbat t housand s of
millions of people on this earth
have lived, and OlED, without ever
having known anyt hin g abo ut
Christ ian salvation-without SAV–
ING KNOWLEDGE-never having
heard the ONLY name by which
men may be saved! Now think what
that means! I F all unsaved go
immedia tely to bell at death- the
hell commonly believed in- then
more than HALF of the people who
have lived on this earth have been
consigned the re-and they a re
there, now, without ever having
been given so much as a CHANCE to
escape it!
Ask yourselves candidly, do you
believe THAT is the plan by which
an all -wise, all-mercifu l, loving
Goo is working out his purpose
here below?
Now
what is the
TRUTH?
We face this alternative: Either
t he Holy Bible is the inspire9
WoRo oF Goo, sv w HtCH THE
CREATOR
revea/s
the TRUTH On
the subject, or else we must fling
up our hands and confess WE JUST
10
DON'T KNOw- we are
ignoran!
on
the question- because no one has
ever COME BACK from such an
ever -burning hell to tell us about
it , a nd SCIENCE kn ows nothing
about it. We must believe what the
BIBLE says, or we can believe
noth–
ing,
if we are rational and hon–
est!
Does the BIBLE say anything
about " hell fire"? Did Jesus say
somethi ng about hell fi re? Yes, he
did!
Hell Fire in the Bible
He said, in the passage most often
quoted: " And if thine eye offend
thee, pluck it out : it is better for
thee to enter into the kingdom of
God with one eye, than ' having two
eyes to be cast into hell fire: where
their worm d ieth not, and the fire
is
not quenched. For every one shall
be salted with fire, and every sacri–
f ice shall be salted with salt"
(Mark 9:47-49).
Now exactly what
is
this hell
fire? This word
he/1
is an English
word. Mark wrote, originally, in
the Greek lang uage. The word
originally inspired, which Mark
actually wrote, was the Greek word
gehenna,
which certainly does refer
lO
FIRE.
But in
most
passages in the New
Testament where the English word
he/1
is found in our English transla–
tions, the original Grcek word was
a
different
word,
hades- which
does NOT refer to FIRE at aJI , but
has an altogether different mean–
ing.
lnco rrectly Tran s lated " Hell"
Remember we merely read a trans–
lation of the Bible from its orig inal
languages. A leading Bible dictio–
nary, called
A Dictionary of the
Bible,
edited by J ames Hasti ngs,
says this:
" In our Authorized Version the
word 'hell' is unfortuna tely used
as the rendering of
three distinct
words, with different meanings.
It
represents, ( 1) the 'sheol' of the
Hebrew Old T estament , a nd the
'hades ' of ... the New T esta–
ment. ... l t is now
an entirely
misleading rendering,
especially
in the New T estament passages.
The English revisers, therefore,
have s ubst itut e d the or iginal
Greek word ' hades' for 'hell' in
the New T estament . In the Amer–
ican revision t he word 'hell ' is
entirely discarded in this connec–
tion.... The word ' hell ' is t ra ns–
lated (2) as the equivalent of the
Greek word
taftaros,
(11 Peter
2:4; compare with Jude 6), and,
(3) as the equiva lent of the Greek
word 'gehenna.' "
The o riginal Hebrew word
sheol
and the Greek
hades
mean
the same- t he o RAvE, and t hese
original words are so trans la ted in
ma ny places.
H ell
i s an old
English word, and 370 years ago,
when the Authorized Version was
translated, the people of England
commonly talked about putting
their pota toes in HELL for the win–
ter-a good way of preserving
potatoes- for the word then
meant merely a hole in the ground
that was covered up--a dark and
si lent p lace-a GRAVE. But PA–
GAN teachings that gained popular
acceptance have caused people to
apply to the English word t he
meaning of "hell" wbicb carne out
of t he imaginations of Dante.
The Greek word
tartaros
occurs
only once in the New Tes tament
and does not refer to humans, but
the place of fallen angels. lts mean–
ing, transla t ed into English, is
"darkness of the material un í–
verse," or "dark abyss" or " pris–
on."
And now the Greek word
gehen–
na.
Here is the official DEFINITION
of that very Greek word which was
inspired by God, and written orig i–
nally by Mark. I quote from Hast–
ings: "Gehenna: the word occurs
twelve times in the New Testa–
ment. This term 'gehenna' repre–
sents 'the VaJiey of Hinnom' (Ne–
hemiah J I :30 , II Kings 23: 1O,
e tc.). The place was . .. a deep nar–
row gorge in the vicinity of J erusa–
lem, understood to be on the south
s ide. Jt is repeatedly mentioned in
the Old Testament ( Jeremiah 19:6,
etc.). lt became éJ.n object of horror
to the J ews, and is said to have
been made the receptacle for bones,
the bod ies of beasts and criminals,
refuse and all unclean things. The
terribl e association s of the
place ... the
fires
said to have been
kept burning in it in order to
con–
sume
the foul and corrupt objec ts
that were thrown into it, made it a
natural and unmistakable symbol of
The PLAIN TRUTH