Surprised by Hell: Unexpected Discoveries in the Bible and Church History

By Les Bridgeman

What does the Bible say about final punishment? And how have those statements been interpreted through the centuries? From the Gospel of Matthew to the book of Revelation, from Clement of Alexandria to C.S. Lewis, Bridgeman takes you on a journey into the underworld. Along the way, intriguing discoveries are made, leading into three major views of final judgment. But this tour does not end with mere diversity because underlying similarities are uncovered. Filled with rich content yet highly readable, Surprised by Hell is an insightful guide to this challenging topic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BibleBridge
• Release date: Feb 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215669990

Les Bridgeman

Les Bridgeman has served as a high school teacher and guidance counselor in international schools in Asia. He has taught Old Testament, New Testament, philosophy, world religions, and psychology. He is married with two children. He blogs at www.bible-bridge.com.

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Les Bridgeman

SURPRISED

BY HELL

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Unexpected Discoveries in

the Bible and Church History

BibleBridge

Copyright © 2017, 2022 , 2023

The latest edition of this book was published on December 30, 2023.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NASB taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org"

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases throughout the book are the author’s, including those in Scripture texts.

Surprised by Hell: Unexpected Discoveries in the Bible and Church History

BibleBridge

www.bible-bridge.com

Cover design by Talia Bridgeman

"Then I will tell them plainly,

‘I never knew you.

Away from me, you evildoers!’"

(Matthew 7:23)

"For no one is cast off

by the Lord forever."

(Lamentations 3:31)

Contents

Growing Up

Between Death and Resurrection

Surprise: Evangelism in Acts

Incinerator

Everlasting Prison: Luke and Mark

Everlasting Prison: Revelation

Everlasting Prison: Matthew

Gehenna: Old Testament

Gehenna: New Testament

Gehenna: Intertestamental Literature

Gehenna: A Synthesis

Descending to Hades

Refinery: Historical Overview

Refinery: Separation and Unification

Refinery: God’s Character

Refinery: Paul’s Theology

Refinery: Challenges and Caveats

Three Views: A Summary

Hell’s Inhabitants

Official Statements

The End

Bibliography

Notes

Chapter one

Growing Up

A

s a teenager, I was a bit of a Christian extremist. Not the violent type, just a young person who was super-serious about the Christian faith. From the time I was fourteen, I read the Bible and prayed for at least an hour each day—sometimes much more, started small group Bible studies, and attended a Pentecostal church a minimum of three times per week. I also fasted frequently, handed out gospel tracts to strangers, and carried a pocket Bible with me through the halls of my public high school. I was not the typical American teenager.

I even quit my high school baseball team because I felt like I was thinking too much about a sport: What’s my batting average? How many errors have I committed? Without baseball, I would have more time to focus on things that really mattered, like prayer and Bible reading.

Why was I like that? One easily identifiable cause was my belief in the traditional idea of hell, which asserts that unbelievers will suffer in eternal conscious torment. I used to imagine people in hell—people I knew—then I would pray intensely for their salvation. Why? Because if they died, they would go to hell instantly. And they could die at any moment. They were one breath away from unimaginable and unending suffering. How could I not think about it?

Why was I so fixated on the place with eternal flames? Maybe some personalities gravitate to the topic of hell. Or maybe I had read too much from authors of previous generations like Charles Finney (1792–1875)[1] and Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). Edwards delivered an intense and frightening description of God’s wrath in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He addressed sinners in this way:

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. . . 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.

[2]

For whatever reason, hell was frequently on my mind. But I never really thought I would be the one suffering forever in the otherworldly fire. I was sure I was going to make it.

Who wasn’t going to escape the eternal flames? Those who didn’t believe in Christ, those who didn’t abstain from evil, those who didn’t care about the Bible, those who didn’t go to my church. Basically, most of the people I knew. At the time, I wasn’t aware of my own self-righteous attitude in determining who would be saved.  

But I was genuinely concerned for others. Sometimes I meditated on hell to keep me focused while listening to a pastor’s sermon. There are people here who are going to suffer in agony forever, I thought. That gave me the jolt I needed to stay alert and prayerful during a boring sermon.

After graduating from high school, I studied the Bible in a small Christian college in New England. My school assigned us to serve in local churches so I had the opportunity to preach a couple of times. In one message I said something like, The worst part about hell is that there is no way out. It is unending torment. The people who go there can never get out. After that statement, you could have heard a pin drop on the carpet.

Following my undergraduate studies, I went on to earn a master’s degree from an evangelical seminary. Since then, I have worked as a youth pastor, high school Bible teacher, and curriculum writer. I’m grateful for the people and experiences that have shaped my thinking on various issues, including my perspective on hell: conversations with professors, debates with roommates, discussions with students, and reading insightful books.

My journey down the long path of Christian history has resulted in surprising discoveries. I’m writing to share what I’ve found along the way. These findings may be threatening at first, but they are ideas that have been around for centuries—rooted in the works of early Christian leaders. Reading this book, then, requires a willingness to consider more than one perspective on this topic.

In particular, we will examine three major depictions of hell in Christian thought and compare them with the biblical evidence: (1) an everlasting prison of eternal conscious torment, (2) an incinerator that results in annihilation, and (3) a refinery leading to universal salvation.

This book has not been written to cause division. My exploration has included searching for the unity of the historic and worldwide Christian church on this subject. Ultimately, this is only one person’s journey to understanding a single topic in Christianity. You may not agree with the conclusions, but I hope it inspires you to embark on your own journey through the Bible and church history.

Chapter Two

Between Death and Resurrection

G

ordon-Conwell Theological Seminary is one of the major evangelical seminaries in the U.S. and I had the privilege of studying there from 1999–2001. My professors were members of various Protestant denominations and several were distinguished authors. I remember feeling awe-inspired at meeting scholars who had written books I had read.

A Professor

Not long after I arrived, I heard that one of the professors was from the Advent Christian Church, which affirmed the literal destruction or annihilation of the wicked. Although I didn’t take a class with this professor or even have a discussion with him, the fact that he taught at GCTS left me puzzled: How could anyone who believes the Bible hold to that idea? And how could he teach at a major evangelical seminary?

A Guest Speaker

A few months later, I heard a guest speaker named N. T. Wright deliver a message in chapel. During his talk he said something about hell. He was talking about Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 and explaining that it was a parable. In the story, the rich man dies and finds himself in agony in flames.

Wright’s comments must have provoked me deeply. Although I rarely spoke up even in a small classroom, during the question and answer time I lifted my hand and asked something like, So what do you think happens to unbelievers when they die? I had assumed that as soon as the unrighteous die they begin to experience eternal conscious torment.

I don’t remember Wright’s exact answer, but it was basically that we can’t be sure. I was startled. His answer challenged my assumption and left me wondering: Why am I so sure that eternal punishment begins at the moment of death for unbelievers?

The Intermediate State

If I had known what Martin Luther (1483–1546) taught, my assumption would have been challenged by the founder of Protestantism. Luther taught what some have called soul sleep.[3] Soul sleep is the idea that at death everyone enters an unconscious state only to be awakened at Christ’s return.  Proponents of soul sleep reason that if we go to heaven or hell immediately when we die, there would be no point to the astonishing events still to come—Christ’s return, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. Only after these events will people be assigned to their eternal destinations.

I also didn’t know that John Calvin (1509–1564) disagreed with Luther on this doctrine. Calvin’s first major theological work, written in 1534, called Psychopannychia (essentially meaning soul sleep) was a refutation of soul sleep. The book opens with a rejection of both soul sleep and soul death (thnetopsychism):  

Some, while admitting it [the soul] to have a real existence, imagine that it sleeps in a state of insensibility from Death to The Judgment-day, when it will awake from its sleep; while others will sooner admit anything than its real existence, maintaining that it is merely a vital power which is derived from arterial spirit on the action of the lungs, and being unable to exist without body, perishes along with the body, and vanishes away and becomes evanescent till the period when the whole man shall be raised again. We, on the other hand, maintain both that it is a substance, and after the death of the body truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding.

[4]

Why did Luther and Calvin arrive at different conclusions? The biblical evidence for the nature of the intermediate state—the time after death and before the resurrection of the dead—has led readers in different directions. On the one hand, it sounds like at death we immediately enter a conscious and pleasurable experience with Christ. Jesus told the thief on the cross, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43), and Paul says, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far (Phil 1:23), and we . . . would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8). In paradise, with Christ, and with the Lord do not sound like terms describing an unconscious state. When believers die, the realm they enter and the experience they begin can be summed up in two words: with Christ.

On the other hand, certain passages appear to affirm an unconscious or slumber-like postmortem existence. Jesus said the young girl who died was asleep (Mk 5:39), and Paul refers to the dead as those who sleep in death (1 Thess 4:13), and those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:20). Granted sleep may be a euphemism for death. For example, when Stephen was stoned to death, it also says he fell asleep (Acts 7:60). However, the doctrine of soul sleep does not rely solely on references to dead people sleeping. Jesus says, a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out (Jn 5:28–29). How does this resurrection make sense if, at death, we are instantly transported to our final destination? Do we, as disembodied spirits, leave paradise to re-enter our resurrected bodies then return to be with Christ? For soul sleep advocates, the resurrection makes more sense if we simply ascend from the grave. And this means when we die, we, as incorporeal beings, don’t immediately go anywhere.

Dualism and Monism

Notice that both soul sleep and a conscious state assume a dualist conception of humans, which means we are two things: soul (or mind) and body. In particular, we are corporeal and incorporeal and during the intermediate state, while our body is decaying, our soul is doing something else, either sleeping (unconscious) or awake (conscious). In addition to many biblical references to soul or spirit, Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12 seem to support dualism:

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. (vv. 2–4)

According to Paul, this man may have separated from his body—Paul says he doesn’t know, but he affirms the possibility—thus revealing the man’s two-part nature. Hence, it is possible to go somewhere without our body. Also consider the story of Jesus raising the dead girl. When Jesus told her to get up, Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up (Lk 8:55).[5] Her body was motionless until her spirit returned causing her to reanimate. This corresponds with Jesus’ words on the cross, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit then he breathed his last breath (Lk 23:46). Similarly, before he died, Stephen said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (Acts 7:59). The idea of our spirit returning to God at death is found in the Old Testament:

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,

and the golden bowl is broken;

before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,

and the wheel broken at the well,

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,

and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (Eccl 12:6-7)

For me, a key passage in the dualism-monism debate is one we have already encountered: Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). Jesus made this statement to the criminal on the cross beside him before they died. After they died, their bodies were removed from the crosses and buried. But if Jesus was right, their personal identity was no longer connected to their physical bodies. They were not located in their respective graves; they were located somewhere else—in paradise.

While I can sympathize to some degree with soul sleep advocates, I believe the biblical evidence favors dualism. Dale  Allison writes,

Matthew, Mark, the author of Luke-Acts, John, and Paul as well as the author of Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Revelation all believed that the self or some part of it could leave the body and even survive without it.

When Jesus, in Matthew and Mark, walks on water, his disciples fear that he may be a phantasma, a ghost; and when, risen from the dead, he appears to his own in Luke, he denies that he is a pneuma, a spirit. The concept of a disembodied spirit wasn’t foreign to first-century Jews.

[6]

Of course, this doesn’t mean that all Jews affirmed the existence of spirits. Sadducees, for example, were political leaders who rejected the existence of angels and spirits (Acts 23:6). But it does show that this was a mainstream idea in first-century Judaism. Regarding the resurrection, angels, and spirits, Luke, the author of Acts, says, the Pharisees believe all these things (Acts 23:8).

However, for a variety of reasons many modern scholars have moved on from dualist conceptions of the human person . . . opting instead for monism.[7] This monism is essentially physicalism, which limits human beings to matter and brainwaves. Although there are significant detractors to this materialistic view, since it is a standard perspective today, we will consider this possibility. If humans are not two distinct things but unified and inseparable mind-body beings, we can’t go   anywhere as mere souls. So what happens when we die?

Immediate Resurrection

One possibility is immediate resurrection: at death, we are raised in our new bodies instantly.[8] A primary text used to support this idea is found in 2 Corinthians 5.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (vv. 1–4)

This statement indicates that when our earthly tent or body is destroyed, we will be clothed with our heavenly dwelling or new body, which is immortal. And since we will not be found naked, meaning without our heavenly dwelling or new bodies, the intermediate state as disembodied spirits is eliminated. What about those who do not belong to Christ? If resurrection life is reserved for Christ’s people, what will happen to others? We will explore different answers to that question throughout this book.

But didn’t Paul say that the resurrection will only happen at the end when Christ returns? He writes:

According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the