At this point some may say, “this sounds wonderful but it almost sounds too good to be true.” Some teach that if one accepts Christ now and lives a relatively good life, they will go to heaven when they die. But if one does not accept Christ in this life, or lives a bad life, they will go to Hell, where they will be tormented forever.

You can rest assured that this is not what the Bible teaches. It is not what a loving Heavenly Father would do to His erring children. Eternal torment is a belief caused by mistranslations of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. It originated in the Dark Ages by overzealous theologians. Unfortunately, human reasoning entered the picture! They felt that surely God must treat differently those who live a good life from those who live an evil life. Perhaps they were well intentioned considering it a motivator to encourage righteous living. But the mistranslation completely misrepresents the character of our loving Creator and His plan for mankind.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for “hell” is sheol. In the Greek New Testament, the equivalent word for “hell” is hades. If we examine all references in the Bible to the words sheol and hades, we will see that it cannot refer to a place of eternal torment. These words do not refer to a place at all. They refer to a condition — the condition of death. Death is the cessation of life. In death there is no consciousness. In this respect, it is likened to a sleep into which all mankind go, awaiting the resurrection.

The following items illustrate this point:

• In the Old Testament, the original Hebrew word sheol is used 65 However, when the translators rendered sheol into English, they were very inconsistent.
• It was translated grave 31 times; hell 31 times and pit 3 times. When it was a righteous person who died, it was translated he went into the “grave.” When it was an unrighteous person who died it was translated he went into “hell.” However in the original Hebrew, everyone whether righteous or unrighteous went to sheol. They simply ceased to live. They went into the condition of death. The scriptures describe the dead as being without thought or consciousness. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth: in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalms 146:4).
• Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NAS) also describes the condition of sheol. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in sheol where you are going.” Notice how this describes the condition of sheol as a condition of death, unconsciousness, into which every- one goes.
• The life of righteous Job gives a similar insight into the use of the word “There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man” (Job 1:8, NAS). In the account, Job became very ill. Filled with great sorrow and much physical pain, he prayed for God to allow him to die. He wanted to sleep in death until God would raise him again in the resurrection. He prayed, “O that you would hide me in sheol, That you would conceal me until your wrath returns to you…if a man dies, will he live again?…You will call, and I will answer” (Job 14:13-15, NAS). Job recognized that sheol would give him relief and rest from his suffering. He wanted to wait in the grave until the time of his resurrection.

From these Scriptures it is clear that sheol could not refer to a place of eternal torment. If all people good and bad go there and righteous Job (a prophet of God) actually prayed to go there, surely it must refer to something very different than a place of eternal torment. The reality is that it simply refers to the condition of death, unconsciousness, a condition likened to sleep. It is a state from which all will be awakened in God’s glorious Kingdom of blessings.