An Overview of The Afterlife and Definitions

Before delving into this discussion on Hell, it’s important that we lay some groundwork because there are misconceptions about Hell, the afterlife, and annihilationism that most Christians have. I will not attempt to prove all these things here, as that is not the main subject or breadth of this book. However, we will touch on them.

What is annihilationism? Annihilationism is the belief that at the end of the age, everyone who didn’t believe in Jesus on this earth will be condemned to Hell and will be burned up and consumed until there is nothing left. They will be annihilated—cease to be from their existence forever. The misconception most Christians might have about this belief is that there is no punishment for sin if someone is simply annihilated. However, those who hold this belief do affirm that there is punishment. This punishment being: forfeiting eternal life, the capital punishment of hell, the painful experience both mentally and physically being thrown into the fires of hell, and maybe also a punishment prior to entering hell.

Annihilationism is also called Conditional Immortality or Conditionalism for short. These two terms are both sides of the same coin. Annihilationism describes death and Conditionalism describes life, specifically, the condition in which life is granted. Conditionalists therefore do not believe the soul is inherently immortal.

On the other side of the debate there is what could be called Traditionalism. This is the belief that has been held for the longest time of church history by most Christians and is known as Eternal Conscious Torment in hell (ECT). They believe that the soul is inherently immortal or shall be given inherent immortality to suffer agony in hell forever.

There are misconceptions about the afterlife about where people go when they die. Many people believe that when they die, they will either go to heaven or to hell. However, that is not completely accurate. Heaven and hell are the eternal destinations where people will go to at the end of the age after the resurrection of the dead. But before that day comes, people will go to an intermediate state often referred to in Hebrew as Sheol and in Greek as Hades. In the Bible, Sheol and Hades are often used synonymously with words like: death, the pit, and the grave. The final state of the wicked is Gehenna, which is Hell. Some Bible translations will render the words Hades or Tartarus as Hell. But this would be incorrect. For this reason, I would encourage you to use BlueLetterBible to check for these translations when studying this subject.

Gehenna is taken from the name of the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. It was said to be a refuse site for burning all the rubbish from the city, including unburied corpses. It was a historically abominable place where the idolatrous kings of Judah worshipped the heathen god Moloch by burning their children alive. It was a place associated with stench, contempt, and continual fire. Jeremiah 7:32 references this place as Topheth and the valley of the son of Hinnom but speaking of a future prophetic day, the Lord says this place will be called “the valley of slaughter.” The New Testament’s word Gehenna/Hell correlates this to the final judgement.

When someone dies, whether it be the wicked or the righteous, they will go to the place of the dead called Hades. There are however different locations within Hades as we see from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man was located in a place of God’s judgment symbolized by the fire while Lazarus was located at Abraham’s bosom, which is also referred to as paradise. Between these two areas was a chasm fixed where no one could cross over.

Now there are some who would hold to the belief of soul sleep, that when we die, we remain unconscious until the end of the age at the resurrection of the dead. They might refer to Jesus was speaking of His friend Lazarus when he died that he was sleeping, in which the disciples clearly understood the word He used as “sleep” meaning literal sleep (Jn. 11:11). This is why they were confused when Jesus said Lazarus was sleeping when he later had to speak plainly to them saying, “Lazarus is dead” so that His disciples would understand Him. Jesus referred to the girl who was dead also as one who “has not died, but is asleep,” before He raised her from the dead (Lk. 8:52). Paul also uses the word sleep many times referring to death (1 Cor. 11:30; 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Thess. 4:13-15). Elsewhere in the New Testament, sleep is also used for death (Mt. 27:52; Acts 13:36; 2 Pet. 3:4).

Now, I haven’t done a deep study into this particular subject of sleep used in place of death but I speculate the reason the word sleep is used is not for the purpose of indicating people have less consciousness when they die but rather, that they actually do have consciousness. Most people in this world think that when we die, we simply cease to be, that there is nothingness after this life. So when Jesus and the New Testament writers say that death is sleep, they are indicating that there is existence of life after death. The soul lives on. To say sleep, would therefore be a way of refuting false notions about death that some of their audiences may have had. It also clarifies the language a little to indicate that they’re not speaking about death in the annihilationist sense. I am of the personal opinion that Jesus used the word “sleep” because it is a more accurate term when referring to the first death since after the first death, people continue to live on. It’s only until those who experience the second death that those people are actually permanently dead.

Another explanation could be that sleep refers to the body itself since at the end of the age during the resurrection of the dead, we will all receive and be united back to our earthly bodies. So after death, the body is asleep but the soul is conscious. This leads to the next question which is: how conscious will we be after death? Do we need our bodies to maintain consciousness? Are we incomplete without a body? In some sense, it may be reasonable to conclude so because why would we receive our bodies back at all if they were not necessary for some nature or function? Yet at the same time, people who have had near death experiences where all electrical brain activity has ceased, they remember things and observe things happening in the room in a way that could not be otherwise explained if not for the belief that consciousness continues after death. Even people born blind having then a near death experience report things only someone with sight would have been able to articulate. All evidence points to there being consciousness after death.

In defense against soul sleep of the definition being an unconscious state, Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43). And Paul said that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8) and that it is much better to die and “be with Christ” than it is to continue living on in this world (Phil. 1:23). By faith Enoch walked with God and was pleasing to Him. He never saw death (Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5). He was therefore translated from one dimension of living to another even as Elijah was also (2 Kings 2:11).

When the Sadducees (who didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead) tried to trap Jesus with a question, Jesus answered their question and then said, “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken” (Mk. 12:26-27). According to these Scriptures, we can therefore affirm that all who are righteous (whom God ascribes righteousness to through faith) will indeed have living consciousness after death. There will be a resurrection of the righteous.

What about the wicked? These passages listed here do not say anything specifically for or against that. Now there is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus but we need to be careful not to use a parable as a foundation for theological truth. Jesus was simply illustrating the punishment for sin and the administration of God’s justice. Parables are stories not to be taken literally. I therefore do not think we can extrapolate every detail from this parable to make doctrines out of it. It could very well just be symbolic. We don’t know. However, we do know that at the end of the age, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). There will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous (Jn. 5:29; Acts 24:15).

However, these passages still don’t say anything specifically about the intermediate state. I am, however, inclined to think that all people will be conscious to some extent when they die. The life of their soul lives on in the intermediate state. I believe they go to Hades and the particular place in Hades they will be will be like a prison for the unrighteous as they await their judgement at the end of the age. How slow or fast time will be in this other spiritual dimension in the universe, who can say? I think it would be faulty of us to presume. Maybe they will be asleep for thousands of years but in some kind of cognitive state like dreaming and then at the end of the age, they will awake. Or perhaps their cognitive state is more than as with dreaming but less than as is being united to a body. Will they even experience physical pain without a body? Or will it be more like mental anguish? Will they have temporary bodies? Does the soul have a natural embodied form? I am not quite sure of all these details and may have to study this subject more to narrow down those finer points.

1 Peter 3:19-20 says, “in which also He [Jesus] went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” Other translations render “made proclamation” as “preached” to the spirits in prison. The location of this prison or synonymous term is “the lower parts of the earth” where Christ descended (Eph. 4:9). It is also referred to as Hades and Sheol (Acts 2; Ps. 16:10).

The context of 1 Peter 3 does strongly imply that these spirits are human spirits, those whom Noah also preached repentance to who also failed to enter the ark to be saved. Was Jesus proclaiming victory? Was He preaching the gospel as a second opportunity to repent and believe? The text isn’t clear. What does seem clear, however, is that these spirits would need to have been conscious in order to hear the message Jesus spoke to them. Did Jesus wake them up? Or were they already awake? Or were they dead dead? To further support the belief of consciousness after death, right after Jesus died, Matthew 27:52-53 records that “the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Granted, this says “many,” not “all.” However, this passage at least seems to contradict the idea that after death all people will be in a state of soul sleep, especially since the resurrection of Jesus had conquered death.

What about near-death experiences of hell? How do we interpret those? I take NDEs to be visions of the consciousness. They only prove that consciousness exists after death (at least for some time and for some people), and that consciousness does not need a brain and body to be conscious. This might be an interesting conversation to have with an atheist. Other than that, I don’t believe that this alone proves ECT since not everyone’s theology lines up with each other during the time they were dead and also because some people have seen Buddha and others, Santa Claus, etc., depending on what they believed. Others see nothing. But remember, just because someone has a vision, that doesn’t mean that what they saw was necessarily the truth. Take Joseph Smith, for example. Also, the Apostle Paul said: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” (Gal. 1:8; NASB). That is to say, visions and NDEs don’t prove the truth that has been handed down to us from the Apostles. Everything must be tested.

So far, the evidence we have come to see seems to support that all people who have died will have a continued state of consciousness in the intermediate afterlife. The next question we shall take on is whether or not this existence will be everlasting or not.