Good questions, Caroline.  Stay tuned.  Your confusion will soon come to an end---if you really want it to.  (Or you can remain in it, like your “enlightened” buddies.) Izzy

 

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Caroline Wong
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 10:10 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Hell

 

David Miller:

The trend has been to transliterate the words, so that

instead of hell, we read "Sheol" in the OT and "Hades" in the NT. The

result is that some modern translations do not have the word "hell" anywhere

in the Bible at all! Isn't that strange. This is done under the guise of

making the translation more understandable, but that is debateable. I think

the common person understands "hell" better than they understand "Sheol" or

"Hades" or "Gehenna."

 

Caroline:

But what did the OT writers and readers understand sheol to be? And what did

the first century Jew understand Hades to be? Did Jesus spend some time

explaining how it is different from say, Greek mythology which is where the

word comes from, or did he just let people decide for themselves what it

means?

 

Jesus gave us nearly all his teachings on hell in parable form and we have

to be careful in making doctrinal statements based on his parables. The

apostles wrote a lot of propositional statements.

 

Jesus said that we'll be judged by what we do (Matthew 25:31-46) but Paul

says salvation is by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). Jesus said some people

who called him Lord and did great things in his name won't be saved (Matt.

7:21-23) but Paul said anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be

saved (Rom. 10:13) and he was quoting Joel 2:32 so the LORD is YHWH. Jesus

denounced Capernaum and said the city will be sent to hell and judged more

harshly than Sodom (Matt 11:23-24) but Paul says all of Israel will be saved

(Rom 11:26). Jesus said we have to be alert and ready till the end because

all the virgins were in the wedding party but only the wise ones made it

(Matt. 25). John said no one can snatch a saved one out of the Father's hand

(John 10:28)

 

We have to use Paul's & John's statements to interprete the parables AND we

have to use the parables to flesh out their statements. It is only then

we'll have the full picture of what Jesus meant when he talked about the

kingdom, about judgment and about hell.

 

But just in case Paul is coming across as too bleeding heart liberal, he

also listed a bunch of people that won't inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor.

6: 9-10) although he did softened it with the next breath by saying that's

what we all were but Jesus saved us anyway. Yeah, I guess the man's soft.

 

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"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man."  (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org

 

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