Chapter 21
The Nature of Hell: A Biblical Taxonomy of Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and the Lake of Fire

Introduction: Why the Words Matter

Few topics in all of Christian theology generate more heat—and less light—than the subject of hell. Say the word "hell" in almost any church, and people will immediately picture a fiery underground cavern where the wicked writhe in agony for all eternity. But here is the problem: the Bible never actually uses one single word called "hell." Instead, it uses several very different words—Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus, the Lake of Fire, the Outer Darkness, and the Abyss—and each of these refers to something distinct. When English translators lumped them all together under the single word "hell," they created enormous confusion. That confusion has shaped how millions of Christians think about the afterlife, divine judgment, and the destiny of the lost. And it has, I believe, prejudiced the entire debate against the possibility of postmortem salvation.

This chapter has a straightforward goal. I want to walk carefully through each of these biblical terms, examine what they actually mean in their original languages and contexts, and show that the Bible presents a far more nuanced picture of the afterlife than most Christians realize. When we untangle these terms and let each one speak for itself, several things become clear. Hades is a temporary holding place, not a final destination. Gehenna is vivid imagery drawn from a real valley outside Jerusalem, not a precise geographical description of an eternal torture chamber. The Lake of Fire belongs to the very end of the story—the final eschatological event described in the book of Revelation. And the distinction between these realities creates significant theological space for what this book is arguing: that God continues to offer salvation after physical death, during the intermediate state, and even at the final judgment.

The English word "hell" itself is part of the problem. It is not a Greek or Hebrew word at all. It comes from the Nordic word Hel, which referred to the Norse goddess of the underworld and her domain. The word has etymological roots meaning "hidden" or "concealed." As Harrison notes, the word "Hell" has "its origin in English from the Nordic word 'Hel,'" referring to "the Nordic goddess 'Hel,' and also her domain," who "was considered to be queen of the underworld and the daughter of Loki."⁵² There is a certain irony here. The English word we use for the most terrifying concept in Christian theology did not come from the Bible at all—it came from Norse mythology. And when translators applied this single pagan word to multiple, distinct biblical concepts, they flattened the Bible's own careful distinctions into a single, terrifying, undifferentiated idea.

Before we begin, let me note something about how this chapter fits into the larger argument of this book. In Chapter 20, we examined the meaning of aiōnios (αἰώνιος) and showed that the traditional translation of "eternal" is misleading. In Chapters 22 and 23 (and 23A–23C), we will explore the purpose of divine punishment and the nature of the Lake of Fire in much greater detail. This chapter provides the foundation for those discussions by mapping the biblical landscape—sorting out the terms so we can think clearly about what the Bible actually teaches.

I. Sheol: The Old Testament Realm of the Dead

We begin with the oldest term: Sheol (שְׁאוֹל, she'ol). This is the Hebrew word used throughout the Old Testament to refer to the place where the dead go. It appears sixty-five times in the Hebrew Bible, and understanding it correctly is essential to understanding everything else we will discuss.

What exactly is Sheol? The short answer is this: it is the realm of the dead. It is not "hell" in the way most people think of hell—it is not specifically a place of fire, torment, or punishment for the wicked. It is simply where the dead go. Both the righteous and the unrighteous were understood to descend there. Jacob expected to go down to Sheol in mourning for his son Joseph (Gen. 37:35). The wicked Korah was swallowed up into Sheol when the earth opened beneath him (Num. 16:30, 33). The prophet Samuel was called up from Sheol by the witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28:11–15). In each case, Sheol is the abode of the dead—not a place reserved only for the wicked.¹

Hebrew lexicons confirm this broad meaning. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon defines Sheol as "the underworld... the Old Testament designation for the abode of the dead," noting that it includes the wicked being sent there for punishment, but also that the righteous are "not abandoned to it."² Strong's Concordance describes it as "Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), including its accessories and inmates."³ And Vine's Dictionary makes an important observation: "Sheol refers to the netherworld or the underground cavern to which all buried dead go. Often incorrectly translated as 'Hell' in the KJV, Sheol was not understood to be a place of punishment, but simply the ultimate resting place of all of mankind."⁴

That last point deserves emphasis. Sheol was not understood, in the Old Testament, to be a place of punishment in the way that "hell" conjures in the modern imagination. It was the general destination of all who died. As William Harrison observes, the Old Testament usage consistently presents Sheol as the afterlife entered into upon death, a place to which people descend, a place connected to both death and the hope of eventual deliverance.⁵

The Character of Sheol

Several features of Sheol emerge from the Old Testament texts. First, it is "below"—people go down to Sheol (Num. 16:30; Isa. 14:9, 15). This reflects the ancient Near Eastern concept of an underworld beneath the surface of the earth. Second, it is associated with darkness, silence, and a diminished existence (Job 10:21–22; Ps. 88:3–6, 10–12; Eccl. 9:10). The dead in Sheol are often described as "shades" (repha'im, רְפָאִים)—weakened, shadow-like versions of their former selves.⁶

Third, and this is crucial, the Old Testament does not present Sheol as a place from which there is no escape. God's power extends even into Sheol. The psalmist declares: "If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!" (Ps. 139:8, ESV). Hannah's song proclaims: "The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up" (1 Sam. 2:6, ESV). And the prophet Hosea gives us one of the most remarkable promises in all of Scripture: "Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?" (Hos. 13:14, ESV).⁷

This is enormously important for our argument. If Sheol were a place of final, irrevocable judgment, then passages like these would make no sense. Why would God promise to ransom people from Sheol if Sheol were their permanent, deserved punishment? The fact that God claims authority over Sheol, that He can bring people up from it, and that He promises to redeem people from its power suggests strongly that the realm of the dead is not the last word. It is a temporary state from which God can—and will—deliver.

Deuteronomy 32:22 and the "Lowest Sheol"

One text that deserves special attention is Deuteronomy 32:22: "For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol" (ESV). This verse refers to the "lowest" part of Sheol, which suggests that the Old Testament already envisions different regions or compartments within the realm of the dead. God's anger can reach even the deepest part of Sheol. This idea of compartments within the underworld—with some areas being more severe than others—will become even more developed in the intertestamental period and in the New Testament.⁸

II. Hades: The New Testament Equivalent of Sheol

When we turn to the New Testament, we encounter the Greek word Hades (ᾅδης, hadēs). The Greek translators of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, or LXX) consistently used Hades to translate the Hebrew word Sheol, and this tells us something very important: the New Testament writers understood Hades to be essentially the same concept as Sheol—the realm of the dead.⁹

The etymology of Hades is debated. Some scholars derive it from an alpha-privative prefix plus the verb eidō (εἴδω, "to see"), giving the meaning "the unseen" or "the unseen world."¹⁰ Others connect it to a root meaning "all-receiving," reflecting the idea that all who die go there.¹¹ Either way, the core meaning is clear: Hades is the abode of the dead. Greek lexicons define it as "the place (state) of departed souls," "the nether world, the realm of the dead."¹²

Hades in the New Testament

Hades appears only ten times in the New Testament, but these references are highly significant.¹³ Let me walk through the most important ones.

In Matthew 11:23 (and its parallel in Luke 10:15), Jesus warns the city of Capernaum: "And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades" (ESV). Here Hades represents the opposite of heaven—a place of humiliation and judgment. But notice: Jesus is not describing an individual's eternal destiny; He is using prophetic language about a city's fall, much as Old Testament prophets spoke of nations descending to Sheol.

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus tells Peter: "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (ESV). "The gates of Hades" is a common ancient idiom for the power of death itself. Jesus is saying that death will not be able to hold back or defeat His church—a stunning promise of victory over death.¹⁴

Perhaps the most important reference is in Revelation 20:13–14: "And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire" (ESV). This passage is absolutely critical for our discussion, and I want us to notice three things about it.

First, Hades gives up the dead who are in it. This means that Hades is a temporary holding place. The dead reside there only until the final resurrection and judgment. Second, Hades is thrown into the Lake of Fire. This means that Hades and the Lake of Fire are not the same thing. Hades is the intermediate state; the Lake of Fire is the final eschatological reality. Third, both "Death and Hades" are thrown into the Lake of Fire, which is called "the second death." Since Death and Hades are not persons who can be literally burned, this image is telling us that the temporary holding pattern of death and the intermediate state will themselves be destroyed. Death will be no more.¹⁵

The Compartments of Hades

Both ancient Greek thought and the New Testament suggest that Hades was understood to have different compartments or regions. In Greek mythology, Hades contained Elysium (the Elysian Fields, a place of bliss for the righteous), the Asphodel Meadows (a neutral zone for ordinary souls), and Tartarus (a place of punishment for the wicked). Harrison observes that Hades "was the abode of all of the dead, both the righteous and unrighteous and those in between," and that there was "a place of paradise, a place of punishment, and a place in between."¹⁶

This concept of compartments within the realm of the dead appears to be reflected in Jesus' parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). In this story, both the rich man and Lazarus are in Hades after death, but they are in very different situations—Lazarus is with Abraham in comfort, while the rich man is in torment. They can see each other across a "great chasm," but they cannot cross from one side to the other. While I believe this parable should not be pressed for precise eschatological details (as we discussed in Chapter 18), it does reflect the common Jewish understanding that Hades had different regions for the righteous and the unrighteous.¹⁷

James Beilby draws an important distinction in this regard. He notes that in the earliest Christian literature, those in the underworld were simply "waiting for the day of judgment, when the wicked will be punished and the righteous rewarded." It was only later, starting in the second century, that the idea emerged that the dead were already experiencing either reward or judgment in Hades. On the earlier view, Beilby writes, "hell is empty until the day of judgment and all people reside in Hades."¹⁸ This earlier view fits much better with the biblical witness that the day of judgment is a future event (John 12:48; Acts 17:31; 1 Cor. 4:5; Rev. 20:11–15). If the final judgment has not yet occurred, then the dead in Hades have not yet received their final sentence—and this means there is, at least in principle, room for further divine action before the verdict is final.

Beilby makes the theological implications explicit: "It is best, therefore, to see... a preaching not to those who have already experienced the day of judgment, but to those who were awaiting it. As such, it is theologically important to draw a distinction between hell, the final resting place of those who reject relationship with God (Greek: gehenna), and the intermediate realm that serves as the 'place of the dead.'"¹⁹

What the Extrabiblical Evidence Tells Us

It is worth noting briefly that the extrabiblical Greek evidence confirms and enriches this picture. The ancient Greeks did not understand Hades as a place of eternal torment for everyone. Harrison documents numerous texts showing that some Greeks believed people could leave Hades. Cicero's De Officiis uses the phrase "safe return from Hades." The myth of Persephone involves seasonal departures from the underworld. And in Plato's Phaedo, we find a remarkable passage describing how some of the dead in Tartarus (the worst part of Hades) can be released after a period of correction—they "are borne away to Tartarus, and when they have been there for a year, the wave casts them out."²⁰ Plato even uses the word "incurable" (aniatos) for those who will never be released—but this word is never applied to the lost in the Bible. As Harrison observes, "salvation after death was held by some Greeks and words such as 'Hades' and 'Tartarus' didn't automatically mean eternal torment."²¹

I want to be clear: I am not saying that Greek mythology determines Christian theology. It does not. But the New Testament was written in Greek, using Greek words whose meanings were shaped by how those words were commonly understood. When Jesus and the apostles used the word Hades, their audiences would have heard it as the realm of the dead—a temporary, intermediate place—not as a place of final, irrevocable, eternal punishment. The Holy Spirit inspired the New Testament to be written in the common language (Koine Greek) precisely so that it could be understood. We do well to hear these words as the original audience would have heard them.²²

One fascinating detail from the extrabiblical evidence is worth highlighting. Harrison draws attention to a passage from Apollodorus where a figure "is punished even after death" in Hades. The Greek word used for "punished" is kolazō (κολάζω)—the very same root used by Jesus in Matthew 25:46 (kolasin aiōnion). Harrison notes that this word "has the idea of 'correction'" and that the correction described "was given after death (μετα θανατον) in Hades."⁵⁸ This is a telling detail. In the extrabiblical Greek world, punishment in Hades was understood as corrective, not merely retributive—and the very word Jesus chose to describe the fate of the wicked carries that same corrective connotation (as we discussed in greater detail in Chapter 20). This fits naturally with the postmortem opportunity framework: if the punishment in Hades is corrective in nature, it may serve God's redemptive purposes rather than simply expressing His wrath.

III. Gehenna: Jesus' Fire Imagery from the Valley of Hinnom

Of all the terms we are examining, Gehenna (γέεννα, geenna) is probably the one most responsible for shaping the popular Christian image of hell as a fiery place of punishment. It is used twelve times in the New Testament—eleven times by Jesus Himself, and once by James (James 3:6). But what does this word actually mean? And did Jesus intend it to be taken as a literal description of the afterlife?

The Historical Background: The Valley of Hinnom

The word Gehenna comes from the Aramaic/Hebrew ge-hinnom, meaning "Valley of [the son of] Hinnom" (Josh. 15:8). This was an actual, physical valley located southwest of Jerusalem, serving as the boundary between the tribal inheritances of Benjamin and Judah.²³

This valley had a dark and horrifying history. It was the site where the Canaanite gods Molech and Baal were worshiped through the sacrifice of children by fire. The practice continued for centuries, even during the reigns of the Hebrew kings Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6). The prophet Jeremiah pronounced God's judgment on this valley in some of the most chilling language in the Old Testament:

"They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere." (Jer. 7:31–32, ESV)

Because of these abominations, King Josiah later "defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom" (2 Kings 23:10), making the valley ceremonially unclean. According to later Jewish tradition—particularly the twelfth-century Rabbi David Kimhi—the Valley of Hinnom became Jerusalem's refuse dump in subsequent centuries, a place where garbage, animal carcasses, and the bodies of criminals were burned. The fires smoldered continuously, and the place was crawling with maggots feeding on the refuse.²⁴ William Barclay provides a vivid description: "It became the place where the refuse of Jerusalem was cast out and destroyed. It was a kind of public incinerator. Always the fire smoldered in it, and a pall of thick smoke lay over it, and bred a loathsome kind of worm which was hard to kill."²⁵

Whether or not the garbage dump tradition is entirely accurate historically—some scholars have questioned it, noting the lack of archaeological evidence—the symbolic associations of Gehenna are undeniable. Harrison honestly acknowledges this debate: "It is highly questionable that Gehenna was a garbage dump and thus this subject is relegated to only a footnote. There is little to support this proposition, but theoretically it could be possible. Either way it doesn't matter to this debate. If it was a burning garbage dump, it is still obvious that Jesus and others were using Gehenna metaphorically to refer to judgment in the afterlife."⁵³ I think Harrison is right on this point. Whether or not the valley was literally a garbage dump in Jesus' day, the word Gehenna carried associations of curse, defilement, divine judgment, fire, and destruction that were deeply embedded in Jewish consciousness. For any first-century Jew, the word Gehenna would have called to mind child sacrifice, divine judgment, cursedness, fire, decay, and destruction. Sharon Baker captures this well: "The word 'Gehenna' called to mind total horror and disgust."²⁶

Baker also places Gehenna in the larger development of Jewish thought about the afterlife: "The idea of a place of fiery judgment developed late in Jewish thought. The Old Testament refers to 'Sheol,' a shadowy type of underworld where the dead dwell. Sheol does not divide the good from the bad or the wicked from the righteous. No judgment of character or deeds takes place at all." Baker notes that theories of a final judgment in flames "came from Persian religions like Zoroastrianism" and "seeped little by little from Persia into the Jewish culture and belief systems. So by the time we reach the period between the Old and New Testaments, hell had grown in popularity."⁵⁴ This historical development is important. It helps us see that the vivid picture of hell as a fiery torture chamber was not present in the earliest parts of the Bible. It grew gradually, influenced partly by surrounding cultures, and reached its fullest development in the intertestamental and New Testament periods. Jesus was drawing on well-known imagery, not inventing a new doctrine from scratch.

One more point about the rabbinic context is worth noting. Jewish sources from around the time of Jesus did not typically view Gehenna as a place of eternal punishment. Parry notes "several rabbinic texts that limit the duration of Gehenna," and the observation that the "overwhelming majority of rabbinic thought maintains that people are not in Gehenna forever; the longest that one can be there is said to be 12 months."⁵⁵ Some rabbis even viewed Gehenna as a kind of purgatory for those whose merits and sins were balanced. When Jesus used the word Gehenna, then, His audience would not necessarily have assumed He was talking about unending torment. They would have heard a warning about severe but potentially limited divine judgment.

Jesus' Gehenna Sayings

With this background in mind, let us examine how Jesus actually used the word Gehenna. His sayings fall into several categories.

Warnings about the seriousness of sin (Matthew 5:22, 29–30; 18:8–9; Mark 9:43–48). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns that anyone who calls his brother a fool "will be liable to the Gehenna of fire" (Matt. 5:22, ESV). He continues: "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into Gehenna" (Matt. 5:29, ESV). Similar language appears in Matthew 18 and Mark 9. These sayings use shocking, hyperbolic language—Jesus is not literally telling people to gouge out their eyes or cut off their hands—to convey the deadly seriousness of sin and the reality of divine judgment.²⁷

The warning about fearing God rather than humans (Matthew 10:28; Luke 12:4–5). "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna" (Matt. 10:28, ESV). This is one of the most significant Gehenna sayings because it explicitly connects Gehenna with something that happens after physical death—the destruction of "both soul and body." Harrison rightly notes that this verse "contradicts" the position of those who claim Gehenna refers only to earthly judgments, since the destruction occurs "after" one is killed.²⁸ I also want to note that the word used here is apollumi (ἀπόλλυμι), meaning "destroy"—not "torment forever." This verb is consistent with a conditionalist understanding, as we will discuss further in Chapter 31.

Denunciations of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:15, 33). Jesus calls the Pharisees "children of Gehenna" (23:15) and asks them: "How are you to escape being sentenced to Gehenna?" (23:33, ESV). These are warnings directed at the most religious people of Jesus' day—not at pagans or outsiders. This should give us pause. Jesus uses Gehenna language most often against those who think they are the most righteous.

The "Unquenchable Fire" and the "Undying Worm" (Mark 9:43–48)

The most vivid Gehenna passage is Mark 9:43–48, where Jesus speaks of being cast "into Gehenna, to the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (ESV). This language is drawn directly from Isaiah 66:24, the final verse of Isaiah's prophecy:

"And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Isa. 66:24, ESV)

Several observations are crucial here. First, the Isaiah passage describes dead bodies—corpses—not conscious souls writhing in torment. The worms and fire are consuming dead flesh, not tormenting living beings. Robin Parry notes that "in the Isaiah passage the dead are not those in hell suffering eternal, conscious torment but are the corpses of Yahweh's enemies heaped up being consumed by fires and worms."²⁹

Second, the phrase "unquenchable fire" (asbestos, ἄσβεστος) does not mean "fire that burns forever." It means fire that cannot be put out by human effort—fire that will accomplish its purpose of consuming what is thrown into it. George Hurd provides a helpful illustration: a fire crew called a sawmill blaze "unquenchable" not because it would burn forever, but because they could not extinguish it. It burned until it consumed everything combustible, and then it went out.³⁰ David Burnfield documents that the phrase "unquenchable fire" appears twelve times in the Old Testament, and in every case it refers to a fire of temporary duration.³¹

Third, several early Church Fathers—including Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, and Eusebius—did not interpret these words as teaching eternal damnation. Burnfield notes that for these fathers, the "undying worm" and "unquenchable fire" were simply references to punishment in the future world, not indicators of everlasting duration. Eusebius linked the "undying worm" to the gnawing of a guilty conscience. Evagrius, a committed universalist, used the word aiōnion to describe these fires and worms—proving, as Burnfield observes, that aiōnion does not always mean "eternal."³²

Was Jesus Speaking Literally or Metaphorically?

I believe the evidence strongly suggests that Jesus was using Gehenna as a powerful metaphor—not as a literal description of the geography of the afterlife. Several considerations support this.

First, Jesus was a master of hyperbole and vivid illustration. In the very same passages where He mentions Gehenna, He tells people to cut off their hands and gouge out their eyes. No one takes those commands literally. Hurd makes this point forcefully: "If one of them were to have taken Him literally and proceeded to cut off his hand, I am sure Jesus would have intervened to restrain him. He was using hyperbolic speech for greater impact."³³ If the commands about self-mutilation are metaphorical, we have good reason to read the Gehenna references in the same way.

Second, the imagery of Gehenna (fire, darkness, worms) and the imagery of the "outer darkness" (darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth) are, if taken literally, contradictory. A place of blazing fire cannot simultaneously be a place of utter darkness. As Parry observes, this "alerts us to the metaphorical nature of the language employed here."³⁴ Burnfield makes the same point: "Worms and fire do not coexist in nature and like other seemingly contradictory terms regarding hell such as 'outer darkness' and 'fire and brimstone,' rather than take these terms literally as indicators of duration, we should view them figuratively as indicators of severity."³⁵

Third, Baker reminds us that Jesus' primary concern was not to teach the precise mechanics of the afterlife but to call people into the kingdom of God. She writes that Jesus' hell language was a "teaching device, as warnings to those in danger of rejecting God's kingdom." After one of the most intense Gehenna passages (Matt. 18:6–10), Jesus says He came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Matt. 18:11).³⁶ Jesus used the imagery of Gehenna to jolt people into taking God seriously—not to provide a precise blueprint of eternal punishment.

None of this means that Jesus' warnings about judgment are empty. Quite the opposite. I believe divine judgment is real, that it involves genuine suffering, and that it is a prospect every person should take seriously. But I do not believe we should build an elaborate doctrine of eternal conscious torment on imagery that Jesus intended as vivid, metaphorical warning language rooted in the specific historical associations of a garbage-strewn valley outside Jerusalem.

Gehenna and Hades: Not the Same Thing

Before we move on, I want to emphasize a distinction that is easily missed but enormously important. Gehenna and Hades are not the same thing. Hades is the general realm of the dead—both righteous and unrighteous go there. Gehenna, by contrast, specifically connotes judgment, fire, and the destruction of the wicked. As Harrison puts it, "if one wanted to make it clearer that punishment and fire in the afterlife is being referred to, then Gehenna could be used, especially for Hebrew speakers," since Hades "could include paradise for the dead in the afterlife, so mentioning someone going to Hades wouldn't necessarily be a warning."³⁷

Stephen Jonathan notes that the relationship between Hades and Gehenna has been debated among scholars. Some, like Boyd, see no sharp distinction between the two terms in the New Testament. Others, like Jeremias and Osei-Bonsu, maintain that "Gehenna is the final and eternal place of punishment, with Hades being an intermediate state for all the dead."³⁸ I believe the latter distinction is closer to what the New Testament intends. Hades is the temporary waiting room; Gehenna (and ultimately the Lake of Fire) represents the final judgment that awaits the wicked. Confusing the two collapses the timeline and eliminates the intermediate state as a period during which God might still act to save.

IV. Tartarus: The Prison of Fallen Angels

The word Tartarus (Τάρταρος, Tartaros) appears only once in the entire New Testament, in 2 Peter 2:4: "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [tartarosōs] and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment" (ESV). The verb tartaroō (ταρταρόω) means "to consign to Tartarus."

In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the lowest, most severe region of Hades—"the infernal regions... a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky," as one ancient source describes it.³⁹ It was particularly associated with the imprisonment of rebellious beings—the Titans, for example, were cast into Tartarus after their war against the Olympian gods.

Peter uses this term specifically in reference to fallen angels, not humans. These angels "sinned" and were imprisoned in Tartarus to await future judgment. The passage does not say their imprisonment is eternal—they are being held "until the judgment." This confirms again the pattern we keep seeing: the current state of the dead (whether human or angelic) is temporary and intermediate. The final judgment is still coming.⁴⁰

Harrison notes that while extrabiblical literature sometimes associates Tartarus with endless torment for fallen beings, the single biblical usage does not make that claim. "It does not say the punishment will be endless," he observes.⁴¹ The emphasis is on detention until judgment—not on the finality of the punishment itself.

V. The Lake of Fire: The Final Eschatological Reality

We come now to the most dramatic and consequential term in our taxonomy: the Lake of Fire. This phrase appears exclusively in the book of Revelation—in Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14–15; and 21:8. It is the ultimate destination of the devil, the beast, the false prophet, Death, Hades, and those whose names are not written in the Book of Life.

Several observations are essential.

First, the Lake of Fire is not Hades. As we have already seen, Revelation 20:14 tells us that "Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire." Hades is consumed by the Lake of Fire; therefore, they are not the same thing. Hades is the intermediate state. The Lake of Fire is what comes after the final judgment. This is one of the most important distinctions in all of eschatology, and its implications for the postmortem opportunity debate are profound.⁴²

Second, the Lake of Fire is called "the second death" (Revelation 20:14; 21:8). The "second death" is a striking phrase. Physical death is the first death—the death of the body. The second death is something else, something that happens after the resurrection and the final judgment. For conditionalists like myself, the second death is the permanent extinction of the person—the final destruction of both body and soul. For universalists, it is the death of death itself—the destruction of everything that separates us from God. Thomas Talbott puts it beautifully: "Being cast into the lake of fire is therefore called 'the second death' because it represents the death of death, that is, the place where Death itself is finally destroyed forever."⁴³ I find Talbott's theological reading deeply compelling, even though I am not fully committed to his universalist conclusions.

Third, the Lake of Fire burns with "fire and sulfur" (Revelation 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). The Greek word for "sulfur" or "brimstone" is theion (θεῖον). Baker makes the fascinating observation that this word shares its spelling with the Greek adjective theion (θεῖον), meaning "divine." While this may be coincidental, the connection is suggestive: the fire and "brimstone" may point to something divine in origin—the fire of God's own presence.⁴⁴ We will explore this idea much more fully in Chapter 23, where we consider the possibility that the Lake of Fire is not something separate from God but is, in fact, God's own purifying presence.

Fourth, the eternal torment language in Revelation 20:10 applies specifically to the devil, the beast, and the false prophet—not to individual humans. Parry makes this point with great care. The beast "is not an individual person but the personification of a totalitarian political kingdom." The false prophet is "not an individual but a false religious/propaganda system." Revelation 20:14–15 and 21:8 speak of humans being thrown into the Lake of Fire, but they do not describe those humans as being "tormented forever and ever" in the way that 20:10 describes the satanic trinity.⁴⁵ This is an important observation for the conditionalist case.

Fifth, and this is highly significant for the divine presence model we will develop in Chapters 23–23C, Revelation 14:10 explicitly states that the torment of the wicked takes place in God's presence, not away from it. The verse reads: "He also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb" (Rev. 14:10, ESV). Notice the phrase carefully: "in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." This directly contradicts the popular assumption that hell is separation from God. The torment described here occurs before the Lamb—in God's very presence. As Manis argues extensively in his divine presence model, this suggests that hell is not the absence of God but the devastating experience of being in God's full, unshielded presence as an unrepentant sinner.⁵⁶ We will explore this in much greater depth in Chapters 23 and 23A.

Sixth, the universalist reading of the Lake of Fire deserves mention, even though I do not fully embrace it. Talbott argues that the Lake of Fire has a purgatorial function. He points to the vision in Revelation 21 of the New Jerusalem with "its gates never closing and a continuous stream of incoming traffic." Remarkably, Talbott notes, "even the kings of the earth, those most vile of all men who had stood with the beast and the false prophet (Rev. 19:19), are seen entering the New Jerusalem." He asks: where do they come from? The only place outside the New Jerusalem is the Lake of Fire. And since "nothing unclean will enter" (Rev. 21:27), those who enter must have been cleansed—and the only place for cleansing is in the fire itself.⁵⁷ I find this reading provocative and worth serious engagement, even as I hold to a conditionalist framework that allows for the possibility that some will not ultimately repent. The Lake of Fire may be both the final opportunity for repentance and the means of annihilation for those who refuse—and both outcomes flow from the same reality: the overwhelming presence of a holy God.

The Lake of Fire and the Character of God

Harrison observes that the "fire and brimstone" of the Lake of Fire "do refer to torment of some sort, but... could also imply helping to bring people to faith in Christ. Brimstone literally means 'divine stones' and fire is the Greek word pur, like the English 'pure.'"⁴⁶ I find this suggestive. The fire of God's judgment is not arbitrary cruelty. It is connected to the very nature of God Himself—a God who is described as "a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29; Deut. 4:24). In Chapters 23–23B, we will develop this insight extensively, arguing that the Lake of Fire is best understood as the full, unshielded presence of God. For now, it is enough to note that the Lake of Fire is far more complex and theologically rich than the popular image of a torture chamber suggests.

VI. The Outer Darkness: Exclusion from the Banquet

Three times in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus refers to "the outer darkness" (to skotos to exōteron, τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον), where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). This image is distinct from the fire imagery of Gehenna and the Lake of Fire—in fact, as we noted above, darkness and fire are contradictory if taken literally. This suggests that we are dealing with metaphorical language meant to convey the horror of exclusion from God's kingdom.

In Matthew 8:11–12, Jesus says: "I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (ESV). The image here is of a banquet—and the "outer darkness" is what lies outside the brightly lit banquet hall. Those cast out are excluded from the celebration, from the joy of God's kingdom, from the light of God's presence.

Hurd suggests that the outer darkness and the Lake of Fire may describe different aspects of the same experience: "The lake of fire and sulfur emphasizes corrective punishment and purification, and the outer darkness emphasizes the separation away from the glory and radiance of His presence." He speculates that "the weeping and gnashing of teeth will be occasioned by observing from afar the joy of the saints in the New Jerusalem and not being able to enter."⁴⁷

Talbott, meanwhile, sees the outer darkness as a distinct image from the Lake of Fire—one representing the experience of being stripped of all comforting illusions about oneself, the other representing the purifying fire of God's presence. On his view, the outer darkness might represent the ultimate consequence of trying to flee from God entirely—"sheer nothingness."⁴⁸ Manis, while noting that he is not a biblical scholar, observes that the images of fire and outer darkness "seem to be used more or less interchangeably in Scripture" and should probably be taken as complementary metaphors for the same eschatological reality rather than as descriptions of different places.⁴⁹

Regardless of how one resolves these interpretive questions, the key point for our purposes is that the outer darkness, like Gehenna, is metaphorical language pointing to the terrible reality of exclusion from God's kingdom. It is not a third geographical location in addition to Hades and the Lake of Fire. It is another way of describing the same basic reality: the devastating consequences of rejecting God's love.

VII. The Abyss: The Demonic Prison

One more term deserves brief mention: the Abyss (abyssos, ἄβυσσος), sometimes translated as the "bottomless pit." This term appears primarily in Revelation (9:1–2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1–3), and also in Luke 8:31, where the demons beg Jesus not to command them "to depart into the abyss" (ESV). In Romans 10:7, Paul uses the term in a more general sense to refer to the realm of the dead.

In Revelation, the Abyss functions as a prison for demonic powers. The "angel of the Abyss" rules over locust-like creatures that torment the earth (Rev. 9:11). Satan himself is bound in the Abyss for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1–3). The Abyss is thus related to but distinct from both Hades and the Lake of Fire. It is a place of confinement for evil spiritual powers—not a destination for human beings. Its relevance to our discussion is primarily to show, once again, that the biblical picture of the afterlife is far more complex and differentiated than the simple heaven-or-hell binary suggests.⁵⁰

VIII. Putting It All Together: A Biblical Map of the Afterlife

Let me now draw all of these threads together into a coherent picture.

Sheol/Hades is the realm of the dead—the place where all who die go to await the final resurrection and judgment. It is a temporary, intermediate state. It contains different regions or compartments: one of comfort for the righteous (often called "Paradise" or "Abraham's Bosom") and one of discomfort or suffering for the unrighteous. It is not the final state. God's power extends into it, and God can deliver people from it.

Gehenna is Jesus' vivid imagery for divine judgment, drawn from the Valley of Hinnom with its horrifying associations of child sacrifice, curse, and burning refuse. It functions as a powerful metaphor for the destruction of the wicked—a warning of what awaits those who persist in sin. It is not a precise geographical description of an eternal torture chamber.

Tartarus is the place where fallen angels are confined to await the final judgment. It appears only once in the New Testament and refers specifically to angelic imprisonment, not to the destiny of human beings.

The Lake of Fire is the final eschatological reality described in Revelation. It is the destination of the devil, the beast, the false prophet, Death, Hades, and those who reject God. It is called "the second death." It comes after the final judgment, not before. It is the end of the story—not the middle.

The Outer Darkness is metaphorical imagery for exclusion from God's kingdom—the horror of being shut out from the joy of God's presence. It is complementary to the fire imagery, not contradictory, because both are metaphorical descriptions of the same devastating reality.

The Abyss is a prison for demonic powers, distinct from both Hades and the Lake of Fire.

IX. Why This Matters for Postmortem Opportunity

I want to close this chapter by making the connection to our book's central argument as explicit as possible.

The traditional assumption—that physical death permanently and irrevocably seals one's eternal destiny—depends heavily on the conflation of Hades with hell, and of the intermediate state with the final judgment. If the dead are already in "hell" the moment they die, if the verdict has already been rendered, if the Lake of Fire is already their reality, then of course there is no room for further salvific opportunity. The case is closed.

But as we have seen, the Bible does not teach this. The Bible teaches that the dead in Hades are awaiting judgment, not experiencing it in its final form. The Bible teaches that the final judgment is a future event that will happen after the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. The Bible teaches that Hades itself will eventually be thrown into the Lake of Fire—proving that Hades is temporary and the Lake of Fire is something different and final. The Bible teaches that God's power extends into the realm of the dead, that He can deliver from Sheol, and that Christ Himself descended to the dead (as we discussed in Chapters 11–13).

Harrison's treatment of the nature of hell is especially helpful here. After carefully surveying all the biblical terminology, he draws a conclusion that many readers will find surprising: "The biblical usage of the various words for Hell have similarities to the extrabiblical usage. The meaning of the words for Hell in the Bible do not imply in and of themselves that people will be tormented forever. Rather, they could even imply an end to the torment or no torment at all." He observes that "when Hades does refer to torment, there is a basis for believing that the torment will eventually end. There is no biblical indication that the torment in Hades (or Sheol) will be eternal."⁵⁹ This is a remarkable statement—not from a liberal theologian dismissing biblical authority, but from a careful student of the biblical text working in a conservative evangelical framework.

Harrison's observation aligns with the early historical evidence that Beilby documents. In the earliest centuries of Christianity, the realm of the dead was a place of waiting, not of final punishment. The shift toward viewing Hades as a place where punishments are already being experienced—and therefore where divine judgment has already been dispensed—came later. "This shift is significant with respect to Postmortem Opportunity," Beilby writes, "since the latter view is correlated with the belief that one's eternal destiny has been sealed at death in a way that the former view is not."⁶⁰ In other words, the more we recover the early church's understanding of Hades as a waiting place, the more theological room we find for the possibility that God continues His saving work among the dead.

Beilby captures the theological significance perfectly: "It is no part of my version of the theory of Postmortem Opportunity to claim that people can be saved out of hell, if 'hell' is understood as the final destination of those who have rejected relationship with God and have experienced the day of judgment. If a Postmortem Opportunity is possible it is only possible at the moment of death, in the context of the intermediate state, or at judgment day itself, not after the day of judgment."⁵¹

I agree with Beilby on this crucial point. The postmortem opportunity I am arguing for in this book is not a claim that people can be saved after the final judgment. It is the claim that people can encounter God, hear the gospel, and respond in faith during the intermediate state and at the final judgment—before the irrevocable sentence is rendered. And the biblical taxonomy we have traced in this chapter shows that this is not only possible but entirely consistent with the Bible's own picture of the afterlife.

The dead in Hades are waiting. They are not yet in the Lake of Fire. The final judgment has not yet come. And until it does, the God who loves them with an everlasting love, who pursues sinners with relentless grace, who descended into the very realm of the dead to preach to the imprisoned spirits—that God has not given up on them. As we will see in the chapters ahead, the very fire of God's judgment may itself be the means by which He draws them, at last, to repentance and salvation.

Conclusion

The English word "hell" has done enormous damage to Christian theology. By collapsing multiple distinct biblical concepts—Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus, the Lake of Fire, and the Outer Darkness—into a single undifferentiated idea of eternal fiery punishment, our English translations have created a picture that the original biblical authors never intended. When we go back to the original languages and let each term speak for itself, a much richer, more complex, and ultimately more hopeful picture emerges.

Sheol and Hades are temporary. Gehenna is metaphorical. Tartarus is for fallen angels. The Lake of Fire comes at the very end of the story, after the final judgment. And throughout this entire spectrum of afterlife realities, one thing remains constant: God's sovereignty extends over all of it. "If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there" (Ps. 139:8). The realm of the dead is not beyond the reach of God's love.

I want to offer a personal word here. When I first began studying these terms in their original languages, I was surprised—even shocked—at how different the biblical picture looked from what I had been taught growing up. I had always assumed that the Bible taught a straightforward, clear-cut doctrine of eternal hell—a fiery dungeon where the wicked go immediately at death and stay forever. But the more I studied, the more I realized that this picture was constructed by pasting together imagery from very different biblical terms, ripping them from their original contexts, and treating vivid metaphors as if they were architectural blueprints for the afterlife. The Bible's actual picture is far more textured, far more dynamic, and far more consistent with the character of a God who pursues sinners with relentless love.

This does not mean that divine judgment is not real. It is. This does not mean that the warnings of Jesus can be safely ignored. They cannot. What it means is that the timeline of judgment is longer than we thought, the purposes of judgment are richer than we imagined, and the God who judges is a God who desperately wants His creatures to repent and live. The dead in Hades have not yet faced the final judgment. The door has not yet been shut. And the God who descended into Hades Himself (as we saw in Chapters 11–13) is not the kind of God who gives up on people simply because their bodies have stopped breathing.

In the next chapter, we will explore the purpose of divine punishment—asking whether God's judgment is purely retributive or whether it also has a redemptive, corrective aim. And in the chapters that follow, we will explore the breathtaking possibility that the Lake of Fire itself is nothing less than the full, unshielded presence of a God whose very being is love—a love that purifies, refines, and will not let go.