Isn't hell just one place?
Sheol and Hades, Gehenna and the lake of fire.
The short answer Settled
No. Scripture uses different words for two different places. Hades, called Sheol in the Old Testament, holds the dead until the judgment. The lake of fire, which Jesus calls Gehenna, is the final punishment, the second death. At the judgment, Hades gives up its dead and is itself cast into the lake of fire.
Where the dead are held
Sheol is the Hebrew word and Hades the Greek, and both name the place of the dead. David wrote, "You will not leave my soul in Sheol" (). When Peter quotes the line in Acts, it reads, "You will not leave my soul in Hades" (). Peter says David spoke "concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades" (). Christ's soul was there after His death, and it did not stay.
The rich man in Jesus' account was "in torments in Hades" () after he died and was buried. Not everyone there was in torment. Lazarus, who had also died, "is comforted," and "a great gulf" lies between the two (). So when Scripture says Christ's soul was in Hades (), it does not say He suffered there. His suffering for sin ended on the cross, when He said, "It is finished!" (), and committed His spirit into His Father's hands ().
Hades is where the rich man was. It is not where he will always be. John saw what happens to it: "Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged" (). "Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death" (). A place that is emptied and then thrown into another place cannot be the last one.
Peter adds that the Lord knows how "to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment" (). He uses a third word, Tartarus, for where the angels who sinned are kept, "to be reserved for judgment" (). Hades is like a jail, where a person is held until his trial. The lake of fire is the sentence.
The final punishment
After the dead are judged, "anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire" (). The unbelieving and the others named with them "shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (). Nothing is said to come after it.
Jesus' word for it is Gehenna, which English Bibles translate "hell." He warns, "fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (). No earthly punishment reaches the soul, and the body is included, which the dead receive back when they are raised. In one warning He speaks of being "cast into the everlasting fire," and in the next, of being "cast into hell fire" (): one punishment, two names. At the judgment He says the cursed will go "into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (), and Revelation shows where the devil goes: he "was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone" (). The fire prepared for the devil is the lake of fire, and Gehenna is Jesus' name for it.
The usual objection
Many readers take hell to be one place, because the King James Version uses the one word "hell" for Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna. On that reading, the rich man in torment in Hades is already in the final punishment, and the lost go there at death and stay forever. Others argue the other way: Gehenna, the word Jesus used, names only a valley outside Jerusalem, so His warnings picture a judgment in this life, such as the city's destruction, and not a punishment after death.
Revelation answers the first. Hades gives up its dead and is then itself cast into the lake of fire, so it cannot be the final place. Jesus answers the second. Gehenna is where God destroys "both soul and body," and He has just said that men "cannot kill the soul" (). No valley and no event in this life reaches the soul. Jesus also calls it "the everlasting fire," the fire "prepared for the devil and his angels," which Revelation calls the lake of fire.
The words behind it
| Word | Where | Form | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| לִשְׁאוֹל lish'ol, "in Sheol" (Strong's 7585) | Proper noun with a preposition | The Old Testament's name for the place of the dead. | |
| εἰς ᾅδου eis hadou, "in Hades" (86) | , 31 | Noun, genitive singular | Peter's quotation has Hades where David wrote Sheol: one place, two languages. |
| ταρταρώσας tartarōsas, "cast them down to hell" (5020) | Aorist active participle | A verb, "to put in Tartarus," used only here, of the angels who sinned. | |
| ἐβλήθησαν eblēthēsan, "were cast" (906) | Aorist passive indicative | Death and Hades themselves are thrown into the lake of fire. | |
| ἐν γεέννῃ en geennē, "in hell" (1067) | Noun, dative singular | Gehenna, Jesus' word for the final punishment, where God destroys soul and body. | |
| ἡτοιμασμένον hētoimasmenon, "prepared" (2090) | Perfect passive participle | The everlasting fire was made ready for the devil and his angels. | |
| ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος ho thanatos ho deuteros, "the second death" (2288, 1208) | Noun with adjective | The lake of fire's own name in Revelation. |
No textual variants affect the conclusion.
This study checks the Greek Received Text against the Majority Text, and the written Hebrew against its traditional reading. If a difference could change a conclusion, this note explains it. Otherwise it says that none does.