The “believer’s” short answer, of course, would be simple. It doesn’t matter, he’s not headed there. The Bible tells him so—or at least tradition does.

And tradition isn’t afraid of levity either.

Any spirited request from one to another to go there is often met with the confidence that there’d be more than a snowball’s chance of many friends awaiting him—perhaps having even arrived there in hand baskets as well.

Oh how we love to have fun with Hell.

But it seems to me that the man who claims to be a faithful follower of Christ would also want to accurately establish in his mind any “place” he must avoid as he otherwise strives to enter through the narrow gate toward what Jesus also urged His disciples to seek first. [see: Matt. 7:13-14; 6:33]

More importantly though, he could enhance that effort by learning to read for himself rather than accept without question the things tradition claims this place to be. And sometimes I wonder if anyone really notices what the man, Jesus Christ, was actually talking about when He spoke of Hell?

Because, if I realize that, then I can determine where and what it really is.

Since much of tradition claims to base its “doctrine of Hell” on the written Word of God recorded in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, that seems like a good place to start—that is, of course, if I’m willing to recognize that every text has a context. But there’s something critical to consider first about His judgement.

More than any apostolic author in the New Testament, Jesus Himself talked about a place that comes across in our English translations as “Hell.” And those passages are the ones to remember, because He wasn’t describing a place of conscious suffering, but rather a condition of utter separation from what was living and breathing.

So, for the record, when you see the word “Hell” in your translations, it’s describing only one of four things:

1. שְׁאוֹל or שְׁאֹל:  [shē-ōl] which meant the underworld [or tomb, or grave] in Hebrew. It’s always translated as Hades in the Greek Septuagint. It’s always translated in English as “Sheol” in the Masoretic [Hebrew] texts of the Old Testament.
2. γέεννα: [gê’-ên-âh] was actually a valley West and South of Jerusalem, It’s also used as a symbolic name for a final place of punishment described as the Lake of Fire in the Book of the Revelation.  It’s always translated in English as “Hell” or “Gehenna” in the Greek New Testament.
3. ᾅδης: [hâ’-dāys], meaning the grave, the place of the dead or the underworld.  It’s always translated in English as “Hell” or “Hades” in the Greek New Testament.
4. ταρταρόω: [târ-tâ-rôh’-ōh] is a verbal derivative of the Greek noun Tartarus, which was considered a place of torture and torment lower than ᾅδης in (pagan) Greek and Jewish apocalyptic literature. The Aorist Active Participle form is translated in English only once in the New Testament as “Hell” in 2Pet. 2:4. The cognate noun is not found in any manuscripts of either the Old or New Testaments.
   
   

And, most of the time, it was Jesus using the word γέεννα—speaking to His faithful disciples.

But He wasn’t talking about a fiery hothouse tucked away somewhere miles below the earth’s crust. Every Jew in Jesus’ day knew what Gehenna was.  It was literally “the place of the dead”—an actual deep ditch outside of Jerusalem where animal carcasses, organic waste, and the corpses of criminals and transients and other debris were deposited. 

It was a place which successfully portrayed the full impact of what they surely wanted to avoid.

But, more importantly, it was a location which symbolized the absence of life rather than some kind of perpetual torment.

The notion of universal justice seems to resonate clearly in even the most calloused heart.

So it’s easy to see then how, over the centuries since Jesus walked on the earth, men have taken the documented words of God and the Person of Jesus Christ and twisted them to accommodate whatever misguided understanding they might have about the Scriptures. [see: 2Tim. 4:1-4]

Actually, “Hell” isn’t a funny subject at all.

It’s just that men have made it one.

Valor is a word we don’t hear anymore.

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle.” But I’m not so sure discretion is always the better part of it though.

Because somewhere along the line, we’ve allowed the significance of valor to be buried right along with all those men who wore it as a badge. Many soldiers fought, suffered and died defending truth and righteousness so that freedom might remain a foundation upon which to continue to build the kingdom our Lord Jesus Christ planted during His earthly ministry.

Some fought physical battles, others spiritual. Some were won, some were lost.

But it’s not so important to keep score. The reasons for defending God’s righteousness are more honorable than the results.

In this day and age, valor is critical for Christ’s disciple to demonstrate. It transcends any semblance of being merely brave, determined or chivalrous. These are certainly desirable attributes, but circumstances today call for more potent adjectives.

Jesus needs men who are valiant, gallant and valorous.

Because the man of valor intuitively understands that cowardice, effeminacy and passivity are transgressions before the Lord Jesus Christ and are wholly incompatible with being His disciple.

Jesus wasn’t a coward just because He was God. It was because He never succumbed to the power of sin as a man like you and me.

Rise up O men of God!

“But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” [Rev. 21:8, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ spoken through His messenger to the apostle John]

Learning curves are seldom fun.

But they’re almost always necessary. And becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ is no exception. It’s a skill that must be learned and developed just like a trade.

For example, in his letter to the Hebrews, the author admonished the readers for having such a limited understanding of God’s Word that they could only digest it in the form of milk, like infants do:

“For, because of the time [we live in], you all ought to be teachers, [and] you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, having come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not familiar with the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

But solid food is for the mature, who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” [Heb. 5:12-14] [my emphasis]

This was very straightforward. The state of their spiritual infancy had become a barrier to their capacity to determine the difference between right and wrong. But the author didn’t present a problem without offering a solution:

“Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of [things such as] repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…” [Heb. 6:1] [my emphasis]

Not being mature enough to develop expertise in anything is a flaw that keeps a man in bondage to his juvenility. I know. I used to be a milk drinker. At one time, I understood a framing square to be a tool used primarily for checking 90 degree angles. I didn’t care about learning how to use it to calculate rafter lengths and roof pitches, which is a critical phase of house framing.  

In the same way, a milk-drinking disciple of Jesus Christ is still on the bottle, similar to an unweaned calf that continues to rely on the very basic nutrition it has clearly outgrown the need for. We need only look around today to realize that too many of His disciples are actually starving for the solid food they need to grow in the complete knowledge of the good news which reveals what Christ fulfilled regarding the promise God gave to Abraham.

Knowledge brings maturity. Maturity yields soundness of faith.

Every day that I live and expand my understanding of what Jesus and His disciples taught in the Bible presents new and challenging situations for me to learn and grow enough to be able to “discern good and evil.”

But beware. The Deceiver peddles his sweet lactose everywhere, especially inside the Lord’s congregations.

There’s no substitute for spiritual protein.

We live in a throw-away world.

Technology and competition are the culprits, but there’s actually an economic upside: Disposable products usually don’t cost as much—notwithstanding the consequence of inflation.

Unfortunately though, the value of a life also seems to have taken on the same pattern of unrecoverable depreciation. Today, if a man stumbles and succumbs to the tactics of the Great Deceiver, the unbiblical mind is quick to write him off. Repentance is often not a consideration.

But Jesus Christ’s faithful disciple sees God’s purpose for men from a very different perspective.

Our Lord created human life with the intention of salvaging it, not discarding it.

In his letter to to the saints who [were] in Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, the apostle Paul explained, not just how, but also why God desires to reveal His marvelous work [that’s us] to the rest of His great unseen realm:

“To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach good news to the Gentiles—[that is, the] unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light [to all men] what [is] the plan of the mystery which has been concealed [throughout] the ages in God, who created all things, in order that now, the many facets of God’s wisdom might now be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms through [the lives of Christ’s] assembly.” [Eph. 3:8-10] [my emphasis]

A man’s regenerate life is a miracle for him to validate in this age for sure.

God saves him from the slave market of sin that he might experience life in its eternal form. But that quality of life could hardly be said to exist if he couldn’t demonstrate the Lord’s power and glory for the rest of Creation to see in the process.

God digs the broken man out of the dumpster and makes him new again. He shatters personal wealth, then astonishes the poor man by making him rich! He humbles the proud man then makes him a valiant warrior in His service!

He creates new lives that men never knew could exist!

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” [Phil. 3:7]

It started back in the sixties.

I was a teenager. The winds of change were beginning to blow through, and many of our congregations were about to experience a remarkable paradigm shift.

When the dust settled, some of the debris began to take root and grow. The call to “dress down for church” was embraced with jubilant naiveté in the adolescent community. But it didn’t stop there.

It also resonated with an abundance of open minded adults, having been pursuaded to let their hair down as well. While many elders and pastors simply remained silent, others jumped right into the boat:

“C’mon man, Jesus doesn’t care what you wear, He just looks at your heart!”

I bought it too. Whenever I found it convenient enough to attend Sunday morning worship service, I’d throw on whatever reflected the nature of what was important to me at that particular time in my life.

Not only that, I’d also bought into a nagging suspicion that dressing up to worship Jesus Christ somehow ran against the grain of what He taught! And it’s no wonder. That was about the time a popular artistic rendering of Christ’s earthly image emerged, depicting Him as a long-haired, passive hipster who appeared to reject traditional standards of attire.

So, is there actually a Biblical model for how I should dress when it comes to corporate worship?

I think so:

“The Lord also said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments. And let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.” [Exod. 19:10-11] [my emphasis]

[Hebrew: קָדַשׁ (qadash) to consecrate, to be set apart; from the Greek Septuagint: ἁγνίζω (hâg-nî’-zō) to purify]

Let them be ready…

But consider also that, historically, clear-thinking people have always dressed themselves in a manner that showed respect for the event or person they chose to honor by their attendance. In other words, what people wore when they were doing something used to speak to the significance of the reason for their presence.

So…it would seem that the occasion of gathering to worship the Lord would demand an attitude of offering the very best I had to give in every aspect of that function.

Unfortunately though, there’s another aggravating effect in play today as well. The “dress-down” mindset that has prevailed for more than fifty years has become validated by the incalculable worth of personal autonomy. That’s actually just one more rotten seed that initially blew in and eventually found soil to grow in.

How ironic it is that the Lord does indeed look primarily at my heart. But it’s not just my conduct that’s a reflection of that. My appearance is too.

I wonder what He thinks?