Gehenna: The Idea of an Everlasting Fire as Punishment for the Unsaved Dead.

The Greek word "γεεννα" Gehenna appears in the New Testament 12 times. In the NASB it is translated all 12 times as "hell." I will list all of the verses below.  Jesus references the actual burning pile of garbage outside of Jerusalem as an illustration to those listening. It was literally a fire that burned all of the time. He used an illustration of a real place to describe a real place. 

Mt 5:22 

"ButI say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing ,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool ,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

Mt 5:29 

"If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Mt 5:30 

"If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

Mt 10:28 

"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Mt 18:9 

"If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.

Mt 23:15 

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Mt 23:33 

"You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?

Mr 9:43 

"If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire,

Mr 9:45 

"If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell,

Mr 9:47 

"If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell,

Lu 12:5 

"ButI will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!

Jas 3:6 

And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.

Matthew 25:31-46 Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary.
          "This is a description of the last judgment. It is as an explanation of the former parables. There is a judgment to come, in which every man shall be sentenced to a state of everlasting happiness, or misery. Christ shall come, not only in the glory of his Father, but in his own glory, as Mediator. The wicked and godly here dwell together, in the same cities, churches, families, and are not always to be known the one from the other; such are the weaknesses of saints, such the hypocrisies of sinners; and death takes both: but in that day they will be parted for ever. Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd; he will shortly distinguish between those that are his, and those that are not. All other distinctions will be done away; but the great one between saints and sinners, holy and unholy, will remain for ever. The happiness the saints shall possess is very great. It is a kingdom; the most valuable possession on earth; yet this is but a faint resemblance of the blessed state of the saints in heaven. It is a kingdom prepared. The Father provided it for them in the greatness of his wisdom and power; the Son purchased it for them; and the blessed Spirit, in preparing them for the kingdom, is preparing it for them. It is prepared for them: it is in all points adapted to the new nature of a sanctified soul. It is prepared from the foundation of the world. This happiness was for the saints, and they for it, from all eternity. They shall come and inherit it. What we inherit is not got by ourselves. It is God that makes heirs of heaven. We are not to suppose that acts of bounty will entitle to eternal happiness. Good works done for God's sake, through Jesus Christ, are here noticed as marking the character of believers made holy by the Spirit of Christ, and as the effects of grace bestowed on those who do them. The wicked in this world were often called to come to Christ for life and rest, but they turned from his calls; and justly are those bid to depart from Christ, that would not come to him. Condemned sinners will in vain offer excuses. The punishment of the wicked will be an everlasting punishment; their state cannot be altered. Thus life and death, good and evil, the blessing and the curse, are set before us, that we may choose our way, and as our way so shall our end be."


2 Thessalonians 1:5-9(NASB)
⁵This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. 
⁶For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 
⁷and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, 
⁸dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 
⁹These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 
              
These verses are very clear to me. The Greek is even clearer. The very words in this verse indicate a future perpetual punishment of the unsaved. The Greek word "ὄλεθρος" which is translated destruction does not mean complete annihilation, it indicates a perpetual process as well. 


"Thus, health is destroyed when it fails; property is destroyed when it is burned or sunk in the ocean; a limb is destroyed that is lost in battle; life is destroyed when one dies. In the case before us, the destruction, whatever it be, is:

(1) to be continued forever; and,

(2) is to be of the nature of punishment.

The meaning then must be, that the soul is destroyed as to the great purposes of its being - its enjoyment, dignity, honor, holiness, happiness. It will not be annihilated, but will live and linger on in destruction. It seems difficult to conceive how anyone can profess to hold that this passage is a part of the Word of God, and yet deny the doctrine of future eternal punishment. It would not be possible to state that doctrine in clearer language than this. It is never is in clearer language in any creed or confession of faith, and if it is not true that the wicked will be punished forever, then it must be admitted that it would not have been possible to reveal the doctrine in human language!"

Jesus and The Sabbath

This was a short outline I found with some helpful ideas. I never really thought about it until a friend brought it up in discussion. I don't think it was constructed as an end all argument. But it definitely has some good points and is worth reading. 


Jesus and the Sabbath Key Verse: Mark 2:27 "Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." NASB


I.    God Instituted the Sabbath as a Day of Rest

A.    “Sabbath” means a desisting or cessation with more of a negative than a positive connotation. It is a day in which one should not do what he ordinarily does the other six days of the week (Ex. 23:12). God had a humanitarian motive for instituting this injunction against work on the Sabbath.

B.    The same benevolent purpose also lay behind the sabbatical year which was to be observed every seventh year (Ex. 23:11).

C.    In the Decalogue (Ex. 20:8) the Israelites were commanded to “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy [to set it apart from the others],” with further explanation of the command given in verses nine and ten. Deuteronomy 5:14 reveals the Lord’s philanthropic intent that rest should also be given to others.

D.    Besides being a day of refreshment, the Sabbath was likewise a day of corporate worship, commemorating God’s goodness (Ex. 20:11; Deut. 5:15).

 E.    As time went on, however, the Sabbath celebration degenerated into mere legalistic prohibitions which sapped from it God’s original altruistic intent. Our Lord explicitly refuted the rigid restrictions which had developed by saying, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). It was not to be seen as an end in itself but as a means to an end. The Sabbath was, therefore, instituted to bless man and bring honor to God.

  II.    Why Did Jesus Choose the Sabbath Day to Show His Benevolence?

A.    The Lord deliberately performed many of His miracles on the Sabbath.

1.    One such miracle was the healing of the infirm man near the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:5-18). According to tradition it was lawful to carry a sick person on a bed on the Sabbath because the bed was only an accessory, but to carry the bed alone, an ordinary burden, was unlawful. Thus the healed man was criticized for carrying his bed, and Jesus was censored for healing on the Sabbath a man who was not dying.

2.    The casting out of an unclean spirit at Capernaum also occurred on the Sabbath (Mark 1:21-27; Luke 4:33-37).

3.    Jesus cured Peter’s mother-in-law on the Sabbath after He had returned from the synagogue (Matt. 8:14, 15; Mark 1:29-31; Luke 4:38, 39).

 4.    Jesus also healed the man with a withered hand in the synagogue during Sabbath observances (Matt. 12:9-14; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11).

5.    Both the opening of the eyes of one born blind and the “making of clay” which was involved in this healing, brought criticism upon Jesus because they had been done on the Sabbath (John 9:1-16).

 6.    Jesus healed the woman who had a spirit of infirmity on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17).

7.    He cured the man with the dropsy at the home of one of the chief Pharisees on the Sabbath as well (Luke 14:1-6).

B.    By enacting all these miracles on the Sabbath, Jesus endeavored to show the true benevolent spirit of the Law. At the very beginning of His ministry He had declared, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). Jesus thus attempted to restore to the Sabbath its original intent as He also did with other commandments (Matt. 15:3-20; 23:13-33).

C.    By allowing His disciples to pluck corn on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28), Jesus showed that physical needs are to be met on the Sabbath as well. His illustration from the life of David (Matt. 12:3, 4; Mark 2:25, 26) likewise demonstrated that physical needs take precedence over the ceremonial law. Jesus explained that God prefers mercy exercised by man toward his fellows, to sacrifices (Matt. 12:7).

  III.    After Christ’s Resurrection, the Day of Worship Began to Be Observed on the First Day of the Week

A.    During His earthly life and ministry the Lord Jesus honored the seventh day as a day of worship and took care to demonstrate its original beneficent purpose.

B.    The first day of the week was instituted by the disciples of Christ not as a substitution for the Jewish Sabbath, but as a way of commemorating the Lord’s resurrection " And upon the first [day] of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight." Acts 20:7 and also 1 Cor. 16:2. Although Jesus could have risen on the Sabbath, He rose instead in the early morning hours of the first day. In Greek that first day came to be called κυριακῇ (from κύριος, “Lord”), the day of the Lord (Rev. 1:10).

 C.    During the first three Christian centuries the Lord’s Day was carefully distinguished from the Sabbath. It was only after the third century that these Christian and Jewish institutions gradually became confused.