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Jonah 2:2 – Jonah Went to Hell

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Jonah 2:2When you think of hell, what is it you think of? A place of burning? Fire? Demons gleefully torturing people as they scream in terror? If you are like most people, that is likely what the word “hell” brings to mind.

But did you know that such a depiction of hell does not come from the Bible at all? It comes from ancient pagan beliefs; not from the Bible.

When the Bible talks about hell, or hades, or sheol, a completely different picture emerges. This is what we talk about in this podcast episode on Jonah 2:2, where Jonah goes to hell.

The Text of Jonah 2:2

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly.

In this discussion of Jonah 2:2 we look at:

  • Why the first half of verse 2 is not officially the prayer of Jonah.
  • The significance of Jonah “crying out to Yahweh”
  • What Jonah means when he says he went to hell
  • A brief discussion of hell in the Bible

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Ever wonder what evangelism victims are thinking as you drone on about sin and hell?

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A while back I wrote about how confrontational evangelism turns way more people away from Jesus than toward Him. Below is a Facebook account of exactly what I was talking about.

evangelism victim

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A Theological Shibboleth about the Violence of God

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shibbolethDo you know what a Shibboleth is? You might have heard the term and not known where it comes from…

In modern usage, a shibboleth is an idea, practice, belief, or custom which differentiates one group of people from another. So, for example, if you wanted to know whether someone was politically conservative or liberal, you could maybe ask them about global warming. If they thought global warming is a hoax, they are probably conservative. If they think global warming is irrefutable science, they are probably liberal. In this case, the “shibboleth” is the issue of global warming.

The origins of the word “shibboleth” come from Judges 12:5-6 when there was a war between the people of Gilead and Ephraim. The soldiers of Gilead set up a little checkpoint at a river crossing and whenever a man tried to cross, the soldiers would ask them to say “Shibboleth.” Why? Because the people of Gilead said “Shibboleth” and the people of Ephraim said “Sibboleth” (because they could not pronounce the Sh). If the soldier said, “I am from Gilead” but then could not pronounce “Shibboleth” and instead said, “Sibboleth” then the soldiers of Gilead would know the man was lying and would kill him.

Anyway, that is the origin of the word Shibboleth.

I recently stumbled across a theological Shibboleth regarding the violence of God in the Bible. Almost everybody claims to believe that God is love, that Jesus reveals God to us, and that God does nothing but that which is merciful, kind, and gracious. And yet there are vast numbers of Christians who believe that God commands people to slaughter others, that God drowned people in a flood, and that God is the one who killed His own Son on the cross to appease His own wrath and anger against human sin.

Yesterday I was reading the Gospel of Luke and read Luke 12:5. I did a double-take on the verse because while the pronouns are capitalized in the Bible I was reading, it sure seemed to me that Jesus was not talking about God, but about Satan. Here is the verse (without capitalization):

But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear him!

The shibboleth is this: Is Jesus talking about God or Satan in Luke 12:5?

If you check most modern commentaries, they will tell you that Jesus is talking about God. Some argue that the verse refers to Satan. During the first 300 years of the church, it was almost exactly opposite. Many of the early church fathers believed Jesus was talking about Satan, but a few thought He was referring to God.

But what do you think? In Luke 12:5, is Jesus talking about God or Satan?

In the comments below, please feel free to state you opinion, and then also state why you believe what you do about Luke 12:5. And I promise, that whether you answer “God” or “Satan” (Shibboleth or Sibboleth), nobody is going to kill you!

Whose name tag goes on that verse?

God or Satan Luke 12 5

I guess I’ll start…

I used to think Jesus was talking about God, but in the last couple years, my theology has changed enough so that I now think Jesus was talking about Satan.

After all, why would Jesus say that God kills when He later says that it is the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10)? Why are we called to fear God when John tells us that there is no fear in love for perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18)? And is it really God who casts people into hell, or is He rather working to rescue people from hell?

2017 UPDATE: After further study and discussion with people in the RedeemingGod.com discipleship group, it is interesting to note that the word for “hell” is Gehenna, which is the smoking trash valley outside of Jerusalem, and the word for “destroy” is appolumi, which is used in Matthew 10:6 in reference to the “lost” sheep of Israel, and then also in 10:39 (cf. 16:25) when Jesus says if you “lose” your life for his sake, you will find it. So other forms of the word can refer to “lose” or “lost.” Notice later that the Jewish leaders plot how they might “destroy” Jesus (Matt 12:14; 27:20). This sort of seems to indicate that other human beings might be in view … but if so, Jesus would be saying “Don’t fear human beings who can take your life, but do fear human beings who can cast you into the burning trash pile outside of the city.” How does this make sense?

Maybe the key is the word “soul” (psuche) in the context, which is not the “eternal principle of a person” but is instead the “life.” That is, your “life” here on earth. Who is it that can destroy your body AND your life by sending you out into the burning trash pile? Only one group: The religious leaders. They often sent people to live in Gehenna. It was one of the places where lepers and outcasts were sent. But how is this worse than being killed?

We have two contrasts here:

body (sarx) vs. life (psuche)
kill (apokteino) vs. destroy (appolumi)

2021 update: I address this text here, and provide my current beliefs about Luke 12:5 and Matthew 10:28

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Hellish Evangelism

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hellish evangelism
Click this image to see more God memes like this one.

This is a little follow up post from yesterday where I said that Jesus did not in fact speak of hell more than heaven. Note that if what I proposed is true, then most of the passages in the Gospels that people think refer to hell, do not actually refer to hell.

If that is true, then there are very few passages in Scripture which do teach about hell! In fact, there may be only two or three.

And these rare passages use highly symbolic terminology which tells us that we basically know nothing about hell.

One Bible teacher whom I used to listen to a lot, believes that hell is in the center of the earth. His argument is that when the Bible talks about the grave, it uses terminology about people going down into the earth, and therefore, hell must be in the earth. I find this almost laughable, for it shows a complete disregard for biblical imagery and symbolic terminology. “Going down into the earth” refers to getting buried and returning to dust, not going to hell.

Anyway, the few passages which do in fact refer to a place of punishment speak of flames and a Lake of Fire. Does this mean that hell will actually be a place that is burning? I could be wrong, but I really doubt it.

Fire in Scripture, when used symbolically, always refers to judgment. Hell is simply going to be a place of judgment, and it is usually temporal in nature.

Hell will not be a place of torture or torment as depicted in the 1997 Science Fiction movie Event Horizon  (If you haven’t seen that movie, I don’t recommend it. It’s about a group of space travelers that travel to hell. And hell is very graphically depicted in the movie.)

Jonathan EdwardsSo since hell is not a place where God tortures people for eternity, I almost literally shake with anger when I read these words that Jonathan Edwards preached:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.

Aside from his abhorrent view of hell, Edwards reveals a monstrous view of God and a despicable view of men. Forgive me for saying it, but this kind of evangelism can go to hell.

What is hell going to be like? Scripture doesn’t give us much indication.

Personally, I see a lot biblical and theological merit to the way C. S. Lewis portrayed it in his book The Great Divorce. He claimed he was not writing a theology of hell in this book, but I suspect he said that just to keep people from calling him a heretic. He pictures hell as a place where people live and exist because they want to, and where everybody gets exactly what they want. It is not torture. In that book, he wrote this:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.

Lewis wrote elsewhere that the doors of hell are locked from the inside.

If you think about what life would be like if everybody got exactly what they wanted, it would be hell. Eventually, people couldn’t stand to be around each other. The longer they are there, the most disconnected they would become. In this sense, hell, ultimately, is eternal loneliness. It is eternal separation from God and others.

That, of course, is pretty hellish, but it is not the same as God torturing us for all eternity. Instead, it is God granting our desire to live apart from Him and live our lives exactly as we please.

Anyway, I will write a lot more about this when I get to the subject of hell in the current book I am writing on the violence of God, but I wanted to just give a short preview of my views on hell, and provide a follow-up from the post yesterday about whether Jesus spoke of hell more than heaven.

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Does Jesus talk about Hell more than Heaven?

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burn in hellI sometimes hear pastors and teachers say that Jesus talked about hell more than heaven, and so we should do the same in our evangelism.

In other words, it is is often suggested that Jesus “scared” people into the kingdom. He threatened people with hell if they didn’t believe in Him, and so in our evangelism, we are perfectly justified in using threats of burning forever in hell and other similar scare tactics to get people into the Kingdom of God as well.

And it isn’t just the wacko fringe Christians who say this. I have heard it preached from the pulpits of some relatively “sane” evangelical churches. This sort of approach is also quite common in some of the leading evangelistic approaches of our day. People are trained to tell others that God is holy, righteous, and good, and since one sin is enough to condemn us to hell, God is justified in sending us there if we don’t believe in Jesus for eternal life.

And rather than shying away from hell, we are told to use it as a way to invite people into heaven. After all, we are told, Jesus preached about hell more than heaven, and so should we.

But is this true?

Is it true that Jesus talks about hell more than heaven?

In my book I am currently writing on the violence of God in the Bible, I will be including a full chapter on what the Bible says about hell, and the vast majority of that chapter will find its way here to this blog.

But by way of preview (and because the topic of this month’s synchroblog is hell), here are some of the main points I will be writing about in that chapter:

References to “fire” are usually not references to hell.

Jesus does speak about “fire” several times in the Gospels (e.g., Matt 3:10-12; 7:19; 13:40-50; John 15:6). But these references to fire are not references to a place of eternal torture for the unredeemed, but are simply symbols of temporal discipline and destruction that come upon some people as a result of straying from God’s instructions. Fire can even be for purification of believers (the Greek word for fire is pur) as seen in 1 Corinthians 3:15.

Sometimes Jesus refers to “hell fire” (e.g., Matt 5:22), but these are actually references to “Gehenna,” which I discuss in a later point.

The few references where fire may refer to the everlasting flames of hell are places like Matthew 25:41, and are used in reference to a place created for Satan and his angels. Do some humans end up there? It appears so, but again, this will not be for torture and torment. To explain why will have to wait for the book…

References to “the outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” are not references to hell.

There are several instances in Matthew where Jesus refers to “the outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 8:12; 13:42-50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). These terms are sometimes used in connection with fire and so most people think they also refer to hell.

But they don’t.

A careful contextual study of most of these texts reveal that the image of “outer darkness” is a symbol of exclusion from blessing and honor, and the image of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is a vivid symbol of deep and profound regret. The events discussed in these places are typically events that will take place at the Judgment Seat of Christ (which is only for believers) and the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (which is also only for believers).

Again, I need full studies to show this, and these will have to wait for my book…

References to “hades” and “gehenna” are not references to hell.

There are numerous references in the Greek New Testament to hades and gehenna, and regrettably, most English translations translate these words as “hell.” But a place of eternal, conscious torment is what modern people think of when they think of hell, this is not what first century Jewish people would have thought of when they heard the words hades and gehenna.

Hades, of course, is the ancient Greek god of the underworld, the god of death. In biblical usage, it is often a Greek translation from the Hebrew sheol, which means “the pit” or “the grave.” Neither of these are references to hell, but simply refer to the hole in the earth in which dead people are laid (cf. Acts 2:27, 31; Rev 20:13).

There is, of course, the story about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, which seems to equate hades with torturous flames in a pit of hell. But there are numerous problems with understanding this text as referring to what really happens to people after they die (for example, Lazarus is there with the rich man and they can communicate), and so it is dangerous to take this text to literally.

Fgehennainally, Gehenna refers to an actual place that existed outside the gates of Jerusalem. It was a little valley in which trash was thrown to be burned. This imagery must be understood wherever Jesus talks about “hell fire” and uses Gehenna (cf. Matt 5:22).

And do I need to say it? … Yes, I know a fuller explanation is wanted on all these terms and texts, but it will have to wait for the book…

When all of this is considered, we see that Jesus didn’t talk about hell more than heaven. He rarely mentions hell at all. As such, I think there is absolutely no place for threatening people with hell if they don’t believe in Jesus for eternal life. Yes, we can warn people (as Jesus did) about the disastrous temporal consequences of their sin, but threatening people with eternal torment in flames is neither Christlike nor theologically correct.

To say that Jesus warned people of hell and so should we is just plain wrong.

Jesus Really Didn’t Talk about Heaven that Much Either

Having said all this, Jesus really didn’t talk that much about heaven either.

Just as we don’t really want to scare people into believing Jesus, we shouldn’t try to bribe them either. While Jesus talks about heaven more than hell, neither have a big emphasis in His teaching.

Instead, Jesus frequently talks about everlasting life, and life in the kingdom of God. Eternal life, of course, begins the moment we believe in Jesus for it, but the longer we live in Him, the great the experience of eternal life gets.

And the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven) is not a synonym for heaven, but simply refers to the rule and reign of God in our lives.

If you want to evangelize, and you want follow the way of Jesus and the apostles, you don’t need to threaten or bribe. Simply lay out the grand vision of what life is like when we live it God’s way. Life under the rule and reign of God is a life of joy, freedom, contentment, fulfillment, and satisfaction. It is a life of laughter and delight. It is a life free from bondage and slavery and addiction. It is life as it was truly meant to be lived.

This is the life Jesus lived, and this is the life Jesus invited people into. If we want to evangelize others like Jesus, we don’t need to threaten them with hell or bribe them with heaven, but can simply invite them into a way of life is that is better than anything else the world has to offer.

This post is part of the May Synchroblog on the topic of hell. Below is a list of the other bloggers who participated this month. Go read what they have to say on the topic of hell.

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