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Hell and Eternal Punishment- Is it Biblical?

 

The teaching that there is no "hell" where evil angels and the souls or spirits of wicked humans are in torment due to a state of unrepentant sin, and that the human soul/spirit simply becomes either non-existent or is annihilated at death, has been taught by the cult group known as the Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs)for years. It also has been proven wrong for years by many fine pastors, preachers, and Hebrew and Greek scholars of the Bible. But this does not deter the Watchtower organization, and it seems that it also does not deter some in the "evangelical" Christian community who seem to agree with the JWs on this point.

I will begin this article by critically examining the basic foundation of arguments used to teach that the human soul does not survive physical death and becomes non-existent. If it can be shown that the passages used to teach this doctrine are being misinterpreted and otherwise taken out of context, then it stands to reason that the doctrine based on such passages simply cannot stand. Thus we will begin by analyzing the passages used from the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, specifically focusing on the arguments presented here.

 

General Basics of Proper Biblical Interpretation

When interpreting Scripture it is vitally important to understand that there are different types of writing genres within the Bible. The Psalms are "songs" of David and others. Many things within them cannot be taken literally simply because they were never meant to be. For example, are we to believe that God is a giant bird-being because David in Psalm 17:8 asked for God to hide him "under the shadow of Your wings"? Or are we to presume that God is somehow made of metal because the psalmist referred to Him as a "shield" in Psalm 33:30? Most rational people will understand that these are simply examples of metaphorical language and thus these passages cannot be taken as statements of literal, theological truth about God.

We must be diligent in our understanding that everything in the Bible is not literally true because people are sometimes recorded as lying and giving opinions that may not be "divine truth." This is not to say that the Bible is not the God-breathed product from God that people were moved upon to write. But it is to say that we must be very careful how we interpret certain literature in the Bible or we will end up creating or believing false doctrine. This is especially true of literature contained in Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, and other passages in the Old Testament which contain metaphorical, symbolic, simile, and other forms of speech that were never meant to be taken literally. If we make the non-literal literal, we create error. Conversely, if we make the literal non-literal, we create error. Thus we must rely on the Spirit and diligent study to keep ourselves from these kinds of error.

It is interesting to note that both the cult group of the Watchtower and the "evangelical" Christians use exactly the same passages from Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Job to "prove" that the human soul becomes nonexistent at death and that there is no "hell" of eternal punishment. Not only do they both misinterpret these texts (which I will prove shortly) but they also use very flawed reasoning in the process. And it is no wonder to me that the "evangelical" Christians that believe as the Watchtower does commit the same errors in Biblical interpretation and reasoning. If you doubt this, just go to the Watchtower official websites here and here, and then compare the passages and arguments of the Watchtower with what the "evangelical" website here argues. It is almost as if one of them copied the other. This, in and of itself, should give us warning that something is wrong.

 

Examining Bad Theology Taught in Ecclesiastes

So what's wrong with using passages from Psalms and Ecclesiastes to "prove" that we become nonexistent at death? Let's begin to look at the texts in context and compare them with what is said in the rest of the Bible. We begin with the often quoted book of Ecclesiastes. Why is it dangerous to blindly believe or create doctrine from this book? Simply because the "preacher" is making many statements from a point of view "under the sun." The introduction to this book found in the Open Bible 1983 edition explains:

 

"On the other hand, from the perspective of the natural man who only sees life 'under the sun,' the conclusion is, 'All is vanity'...Only when the Preacher views his life from God's perspective 'above the sun' does it take on meaning as a precious gift 'from the hand of God' (2:24)" (p. 656, Thomas Nelson Publ.).

 

Moreover, the Rev. Dr. Walter Martin in his classic work The Kingdom of the Cults also pointed out this fact while dealing with the false Seventh-day Adventist teaching of "soul sleep":

 

"It is almost universally agreed among Biblical scholars that Ecclesiastes portrays Solomon's apostasy and is therefore questionable for determining doctrine. It sketches man's life 'under the sun' and reveals the hopelessness of the soul apart from God" (p. 454, revised edition, 1985, Bethany House Publ.).

 

The writer of Ecclesiastes is speaking about the vanity of life "under the sun" without God and His commandments as the primary focus in life. As you read the book, you find that the author is almost speaking from a "depressed" state and is "sounding off" about the problems he sees in the world. While doing this he makes statements that are clearly erroneous in light of other passages of Scripture and common sense.

For example, in Ecclesiastes 1:15 he says that "what is crooked cannot be made straight..." But is this true in a strict literal sense? Not according to Isaiah 45:2, where God is said to be able to "make the crooked places straight" in the context of a prophecy about king Cyrus. Another example is found in Ecclesiastes 1:18, where it reads: "For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Yet this saying is in direct contradiction to what is said in Proverbs 4:7: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding." And whatever happened to "Happy is the man who finds wisdom," as found in Proverbs 3:13? Even the writer of Ecclesiastes, who seems to have been the same writer of Proverbs (King Solomon), seems to correct himself later by saying, "Wisdom is better than weapons of war..." (9:18).

Now these are just two examples of false teaching in Ecclesiastes because the writer is speaking from a perspective "under the sun," not "above the sun" from a clear perspective of God. The writer even praises the dead more than living people made in the image of God and then says that someone who has never existed is better than both (4:2,3)! Why? Because the person who has never existed has not seen the "evil work that is done under the sun." Notice again how his perspective is clouding his judgment.

One more example should suffice to provide context to my next point, which is to show that passages from Ecclesiastes cannot be used to prove "soul sleep" or soul nonexistence at death. This example is found in Ecclesiastes 6:3, where the writer says that a stillborn child (a child born dead) is "better" than a man who has lived on earth and had many children.

Now in context he is contrasting the living man who has not been "satisfied with goodness" and has no burial with the stillborn child, but even this does not justify saying that a dead child is "better" than a living man. If that is the case, then why aren't all people born dead? Why give humans reproductive systems to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28)? And, most importantly, that statement directly contradicts what is said in Psalm 127:3-5 about how happy is the man who has his "quiver" full of children, i.e., a living man who has many living children. So once again we are faced with the fact that a text in Ecclesiastes is clearly not literally true in light of the rest of the Bible.

 

Examining the "proof-texts" for Unconscious, Nonexistence at Death

Now that this foundation has been laid, we can now begin to see how and why texts like Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20 and 9:5, 10 cannot be used to teach "soul sleep" or soul nonexistence upon physical death. These are the main passages used by the Watchtower and the "evangelical" Christians to teach "soul sleep" or unconscious, nonexistence at death. But do these passages teach this? And, more importantly, does the Bible as a whole support such a view? To answer these questions we must first look at these specific passages to determine 1) if they have been correctly interpreted in context, and 2) if they can be trusted for literal truth in light of the whole Bible. One page on the "evangelical" website (here) attempts to argue, using Ecclesiastes 3:19,20, that there is no difference between the death of a human being and the death of an animal (or beast). Similarly, the Watchtower website (here) goes even further to explain:

"Only God can reveal what happens after people die, and he has done so in his written Word, the Bible. This is what the Bible says: 'As the [beast] dies, so the [man] dies; and they all have but one spirit . . . All are going to one place. They have all come to be from the dust, and they are all returning to the dust.' (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20) There is no mention here of a fiery hell. Humans return to dust—to nonexistence—when they die."

 

Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20 Properly Interpreted

The first thing we must do is determine the context of Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20. The context is not speaking about what happens after death. It is speaking about the fact that both humans and animals suffer from the same fate known as death. That's all. Only in this sense can it be truly said that "man has no advantage over beasts." This we know is a self-evident truth. Also within this context the writer is explaining how God "tests" the sons of men so that they may "see that they themselves are like beasts" (3:18). God "tests" them by showing them that both humans and animals die.

However, I submit that in this context this passage can only be partially true. Why? Because the rest of the Bible teaches that only humans were made in the "image and likeness" of God (Genesis 1:26,27). Man does have an advantage because the rest of Scripture says so. Jesus went to the cross for humans, not animals or even angels. Is that not an "advantage"? And we must remember that the overall context of the book of Ecclesiastes is about the "vanity" of life viewed from a perspective "under the sun." Therefore everything said in this book is colored by this perspective and must be carefully scrutinized for truth.

We know from the rest of the Bible that humans do indeed have an "advantage" over mere animals who were never made in the image and likeness of God. Yet both die and are from the dust and return there (vs. 29). This is the "vanity" that the writer was speaking about. But the question must be asked: Is man just dust? The Bible answers "no." Adam was not just dust because Scripture says that God "breathed" into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). It is only then that we read that Adam became "a living soul" or living being. So Adam's body that God had formed from the dust was essentially lying dead until God put something in him from Himself that gave him life.

Even the writer of Ecclesiastes hinted at his knowledge of the difference between humans and animals when he went on in 3:21 to ask the question, "Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward and the spirit of the beast, which goes down to the earth?"

So when the writer of Ecclesiastes says that "all go to one place" and "all are from the dust and all return to dust" in verse 20 he is speaking in the context of physical death not the afterlife. Therefore, in context, this passage cannot be used to teach the nonexistence of the soul after death because the text simply is not discussing the afterlife and also has false doctrine that does not align with the rest of the Bible. Since the context does not support any afterlife statements, it is evident that both the Watchtower and the "evangelical" Christians who try to use this passage to teach some form of "soul sleep" or soul nonexistence after physical death are in gross error.

 

Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 Properly Interpreted

This passage has also been misinterpreted and made to say something that it does not say in context. Remembering that the writer is speaking from an "under the sun" viewpoint and has already made many false statements because of this, we must be aware that we should be careful interpreting the words at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 as well. We must ask ourselves two important questions: 1) What is being said in context? and 2) Does what was said line up with the rest of Scripture?

But in order to answer these questions more completely, we need to first see what some people have misread the text to mean. Here is the Watchtower understanding of the passage:

"In order to be tormented, a person has to be conscious. Are the dead conscious? Once again, the Bible gives the answer: 'The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.'"

Now after quoting a number of Bible verses that they think prove that human souls pass into non-existence upon death, with Ecclesiastes 9,5,10 among them, the "evangelical" Christians conclude:

"In fact, we may assert without fear of contradiction that the preponderance of God's Word plainly teaches that the dead --- represented as silent and unconscious --- have literally passed into a state of non-being or non-existence."

Well, they may not fear contradiction, but contradiction does exist nonetheless, and it exists in the form of a more accurate and Biblically sound hermeneutic. But let us first take note that these two are saying basically the same thing. But I contend and can demonstrate that both of them are completely wrong and have badly misinterpreted this text. To be continued...

An excellent resource on Hell and the problems with annihilationist teaching can be found here: The Destruction of Hell: Annihilationism Examined by Jeff Spencer.

 

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