Locating Hell

Many squirm at the mention and reality of hell. It is a hard pill to swallow, knowing that there will be a cohort of impenitent individuals who will experience the eternal judgement of God. To shirk such an idea, some would suggest that wrath, judgement, and punishment are found only “in the god of the Old Testament,” while assuming the New Testament presents a God only full of grace and a beloved teacher, Jesus. Yet, we hear of the doctrine of hell from the lips of Jesus more than anywhere else in Scripture. In our text this morning (Matthew 5:21-30), Jesus warns of the reality of hell. In fact, these three mentions (5:22, 29-30) are the only mentions that occur in the Sermon on the Mount. From the Sermon – and other locations in the Gospels – we can conclude that hell is “eternal conscious punishment of those who do not repent of their sins and trust in Christ.”[1] It is the final judgement when “the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:42)

The Greek word for hell in Matthew 5, gives us an even more stark picture of it. The word gehenna [Greek] is translated from the Hebrew that means “The Valley of Hinnom” or “The Valley of the son of Hinnom”. Hinnom is “the valley on the south side of Jerusalem which, after the return from Babylonian exile, served as the city’s rubbish dump and public incinerator. In earlier days it had been the site of the worship of Molech.”[2] In other words, the Valley of Hinnom was the location outside of the city that was full of chaos, trash, and wickedness. It was a completely undesirable locale; the land of decreation. Yet, maybe more important than where Hinnom was, is where it was not: it was not within the bounds of the city walls. It was outside the kingdom.

As much as we gather of the agonizing picture of hell, the location of hell is even more alarming. On one hand, hell (and heaven for that matter) are a part of a different realm that overlaps with our world. Therefore, we need to use our imagination to “picture” both heaven and hell. Since the New Heavens and Earth, the New Jerusalem, is depicted as a grand kingdom and city (Revelation 21:9ff), with “the wall of jasper” (21:18), then everything outside of those city walls is the eternal Valley of Hinnom. Inside the city walls resides “a domain in which there is no more weeping (Isa. 65:19), no more untimely death (Isa. 65:20), no more want (Isa. 65:21–22), no more bloody conflict or evil (Isa. 65:25). It is a place of God’s presence and comfort for all of God’s people.”[3] Outside of the city walls is the complete anithesis. What is most devastating about hell is that those residing outside of these city walls, do not experience the protection, love, and blessing of King Jesus. The same King Jesus who is teaching us through the Sermon on the Mount, what life inside the kingdom looks like.

[1]     “The Unquenchable Fire of Hell”. Ligonier Ministries. https://learn.ligonier.org/devotionals/unquenchable-fire-hell

[2]     Walter Kaiser, et al. Hard Sayings of the Bible. (Intervarsity Press, 1992), 359.

[3]     Denny Burk. “Hell as Endless Punishment”. The Gospel Coalition. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/hell-as-endless-punishment/