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Bible

Free gift of salvation?

Almost every Christian is proud to point how Christianity is so much different than all other religions. If a star was born every time I said it to someone, we’d have another galaxy in the sky!

The main distinct feature of Christianity is, as it is believed, that in other religions people must do things to please God while in Christianity it is God who does everything and salvation is a free gift. You don’t need to do anything, you don’t need to deserve it.

 

NOW please note this article is not about salvation per se. It only discusses what religion claims – that Christian salvation is a free gift.

 

TRADITIONAL CHURCHES

 

In most of traditional Churches – like Roman-catholic, orthodox and some protestant ones – they teach that that salvation is a gift from God but God gives us a lot of aids. Children should be baptized, then depending on denomination – different rites like holy communion, confirmation, confession etc. Plus you need to try to live well, forgive others “so that you’d also be forgiven”. Pray regularly!

 

And when you die… it’s good to have some friends and family members who will intercede with God or some dead holy people (saints) who have superpowers of hearing lots of praying people at the same time and somehow they will make your chances of salvation better.

 

Oh, and of course, obey the commandments. Each Church has their own set and none of them have clear rules on how many commandments are important for Christians and how many times can you break them before you’re called lost.

And if you do all these things… then you have a big chance getting to heaven! Just a chance though, never a certainty, because afterall salvation is in God’s hands and He is to speak last about it.

 

But of course! Salvation is a free gift! By God’s grace!

 

This is how most Churches believe.

 

Millions of people try to believe this message. Try, because it’s simply too inconsistent to be believed.

 

Millions of people live in constant fear of damnation and eternal suffering in hellfire. They are told to love and worship God who is mostly feared, not admired.

 

It used to be worse though. For most of Christian history it was a common belief was only by total ascetism you can get close to being saved from hell so lots of people were self mutilating, starving themselves and did other terrible things to get this “free gift of salvation”. Look at Symeon the Stylite.

MODERN PROTESTANT CHURCHES

Protestant Churches seem to have less rules than the traditional ones, which doesn’t mean their rules are easier. Number of rules doesn’t determine their difficulty. I could ask you to jump over a tall tree which is just one, straightforward task but you can’t say it’s an easy one. Not unless you live on a planet several times smaller than Earth.

 

On of the worst rules humans came up with is called Lordship Salvation (LS). Lots of people say it’s an obvious truth, many oppose, but most Christians in fact believe it this way or another. LS says that salvation can be your only when you make Jesus an actual Lord s

LS says that repentance and submission to Christ accompanies saving faith and continuation in the faith and spiritual growth are necessary evidence of saving faith. If you don’t grow, if you have habitual sin in your life and do nothing about – then your faith is futile, you probably never really believed.

 

Why won’t you try to find LS in the Bible though? Good luck. If LS was a real doctrine the Apostle Paul would have to warn Corinthians, that they were going straight to hell. Corinthians were going to prostitutes, committed incest and idolatry, got drunk in churches and so on. Yet Paul calls them God’s sacred temple, God’s field (1 Cor 3), he says they are all the Lord’s people who will judge the angels… There’s no word of warning, “Behave or you will burn”.

 

If the devil was to make doctrines, I’m pretty sure he would author LS. LS makes Christians live in constant fear, as you never know if today you won’t happen to commit something that will question your status.

Most of LS believers I met actually were saying boldly that their lives are free of habitual sin… this usually ended our conversation as I was scared to stain them with my sinful presence 😺

 

LS will make everyone bitter, anxious and focused on their performance, constantly comparing themselves to others thinking if they’re not better, if their behavior isn’t better evidence than hours that they are saved, not us.

 

LS believers will deny that they works are necessary for salvation, they say that faith simply changes the convert’s life and the works are just a mere result. There is one problem though. Virtually everyone has a different definition of a changed life. If someone stops drinking heavily but still smokes and curses… is his life changed? If someone cheats on their spouse a few times a week but after becoming Christian does it just a few times a year… wow the change is huge, isn’t? Qualified for heaven?

 

I had very short periods of life when I was close to believe LS was real, but most of my Christian life I couldn’t fathom how irrationally judgmental you must be to be able to determine whose life is an evidence of being saved and whose isn’t.

I, for example, for almost all of my Christian life smoked cigarettes and shortly speaking – Polish Baptists don’t smoke – it is regarded as a a very fleshy thing and even though Baptists officially reject LS, when they see someone “sinning” openly they may wonder out loud “are they even saved?”

I tried to talk to some fellow Christians, how can they think smoking is such a bad thing and everyone says it’s such a carnal thing while most of Christians don’t see anything wrong about making clicks at church, taking crap about people behind their backs or wasting 6 hours a day to watch shows.

 

They just looked at me weirdly.

 

To avoid judgment and being gossiped about I smoked in secret.

Many Christian denominations introduced other… conditions of unconditional salvation 🙂 Baptism, speaking in tongues, abstinence from alcohol or other drugs… the list is long.

 

Yet they all call it free salvation…

While both Catholic and Protestant option to me seem as free as the paycheck I get from my employer.

 

Let’s sum it up before I get to something I find actually to be most important.

 

Virtually all Christian Churches preach a totally illogical theology of “free salvation” where you actually need to work really hard, still never being certain if one is successful. Speaking of free salvation is nonsense as long as there are conditions to it!

 

If I say “move your finger and you’ll get a million bucks”, however strange it sounds, the million dollars won’t be free. It will be wages. Big without proportion, yet wages.

 

If Churches wanted to be consistent, they should either stop calling salvation free or get rid of all conditions of it.

 

But this was not all that hilarious comparing to what I am about to say…

 

There is one more condition… of free salvation…

 

FAITH

 

How could I not see this weird for so many years that you can’t claim you need to “believe to be saved” and still call salvation free!!!

 

One of the fundamental Christian doctrines lacks logic and no one cares?

 

When I started questioning things and asking my fellow believers uncomfortable questions I was often told that just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not true… that God’s ways are higher than hours… that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise” (1 Cor 1:27a) but if this is supposed to mean “no logic in dogmas”, why even bother formulate them?

 

With time I came to a firm statement:

God isn’t offended when we ask questions.

If he could take offense at us (I don’t think he could), he would – for not using the brain he gave us.

 

If your church talks about free gift of salvation but adds conditions to it, even as “small” as faith, their dogmas have contradictions.

And if your church contradicts itself with main, crucial doctrines… what makes you think it doesn’t with all the others?

 

And by the way… “small” as faith? “SMALL”? Having someone believe that God came to Earth 2,000 years ago, looked as a human being, made thousands of bread loaves from a few, raised the death and got back to life after being crucified… this all is not a small thing.

The biblical word of Gospel is euangelion – literally “good news”. Bible writers and their original readers had no problem understanding this, no one questions it anywhere. This news is supposed to bring you peace. If it doesn’t, it means you don’t read what’s written. You read into it the ideas what religion wants you to think.

 

And the goal of religion is to control you.

 

 

Ask any dictator. Can you control without causing fear? Of course not.

Last, but not least… if salvation is free, then all people will be saved, right?

No?? Then it’s not free.

 

Read the Bible again, my friend! No one worries there about their fate after death, neither should you!

 

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. (Colossians 3:15a)

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Bible

Salvation – what’s that thang?

If we were able to write down and count every word spoken at a Christian church during one Sunday, I’m pretty sure in most cases the absolute top words would be “salvation” and “save”.


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Most Christians think it is also one of the most common words in the Bible.

Wrong.

Not even close.

The 5 most common words (except for prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions etc.) are:

  • Lord (about 7400 times)
  • God (4300)
  • Man (2700)
  • Israel (2500)
  • People (2300)

Several hundred positions down are save (241) and salvation (171).

Could this be a hint indicating that the Bible does not necessarily focus on what Christianity likes to focus today?

 

Regardless number count in the Bible, the subject of salvation is probably the most commonly spoken about in Christendom.

 

“Once you believe, you’re saved.”
“There is no salvation apart from Jesus.”
“All people in the world are either saved or not saved.”
“Salvation is by faith.”
“How can people get saved?”

Now if we ask Christians what it means to be saved, close to 100% of them will say it’s about going to heaven rather than hell after death.

Does the Bible say that, too?

Let’s look.

SALVATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

In Hebrew, the word for salvation is YESHUA (sounds familiar?). These are the first 5 occurrences of “Yeshua” in the Old Testament.

I look for your deliverance, LORD (Genesis 49:18)
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. (Exodus 14:13)
The Lord is my strength and my defense he has become my salvation.(Exodus 15:2 a)
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. (Deuteronomy 32:15 a)
Then Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the LORD; in the LORD my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.(1 Samuel 2:1)

 

We can see that New International Version prefers the word “deliverance” rather than “salvation” (which we find in almost all older translations), and we may discover soon why they did this. For now let’s have a closer look at the verses.

 

The first one, from Genesis 49:18, it’s a kind of interlude spoken by Jacob in his last moments as he blesses his children and prophesies about the future of the tribes. We actually can’t tell for sure what kind of deliverance Jacob was talking about there. Probably from enemies like other nations, tribes.

The next two verses are only a page away from each other and we have no doubts what they are about – Egypt is oppressing Israel and salvation or deliverance means getting free from it.

In the fourth verse, from Deuteronomy, the discussed word is a part of the title given to God and is pretty general.

In 2 Samuel, Hannah praised the Lord for giving her a son after a long period of barrenness. The salvation she is talking about is then her restored fertility.

These are just 5 first examples of the term “salvation” in the Old Testament but I did check many more. The phrase salvation (literally “saving”) cannot be bound to a single meaning; it has a wide range of meanings, similar to English. A doctor can save someone’s life. I can save someone’s problem by fixing their mistake. Signing a peace treaty can save millions of people from distress or death that follow a war.

 

There is not one verse in the Old Testament that suggests salvation has anything to do with afterlife.

Let’s go on, then.

SALVATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

We’ll be looking at the first 5 occurrences of the word “sozo” – save.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)
The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” (Matthew 8:25)
She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” (Matthew 9:21)
(the same word is used in the following Matthew 9:22, so I’ll skip it)
You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22)
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me! (Matthew 14:30)

“Save” and “salvation” are very popular words in the New Testament, so there should be no surprise that the first 5 occurrences are in one book! Regardless, the context the word is used in is very different in almost all of the 5 cases.

I have suggested above that the Hebrew word “Yeshuah” should sound familiar… You may have heard it from a messianic Jew as this is how they often call Jesus. His Hebrew name would actually be “Yahushua” and means “Yahweh saves”, and this explains the word “because” from Matthew 1:21 (by the way, it would be nice if translators found a way to let us know about it).

The verse says that Jesus is going to save people from their sins…

but what exactly does that mean?

 

People will sin no more? There will be no punishment for sins? Nothing will be considered as sin? The verse and its immediate context don’t conclude that. Let’s look at the place sin is mentioned the first time in the Bible:

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die (Genesis 2:17)

The idea that the sin is punished with death is repeated through the whole Bible, and is summarized by Paul in Romans (famous “wages of sin is death” – 6:23″).

What kind of death is it about?

Lots of Christians see eternal condemnation in hell – but you won’t find a single biblical verse that says that.

It’s not a physical death, either – Adam did not physically die when he ate the forbidden fruit.

Adam got separated from God – and this is the kind of death that explains both Genesis and Romans, and this is I believe what Jesus saves people from.

The second and fifth verse talk about saving from drowning. When we see a drowning person screaming, “Save me”, I don’t think anyone would start telling that person how one can go to heaven when they die.

Clearly – the context says nothing about afterlife.

In Matthew 9:21 the context is very clear – “sozo” means heal, and “heal” is the word most of current translations use.

No afterlife, either.

Now, let’s stop for a moment longer with 10:22.

“Who stands firm to the end will be saved” is a Biblical phrase which is pretty popular among theologians, mostly in context of the question whether a saved person can lose their salvation or not. There is a doctrine called “OSAS” – once saved, always saved – and Matthew 10:22 is one of the key arguments against it. You need to stand firm in your faith/deeds (depending on theological option), or you will go to hell.

Let’s read the context of Matthew 10. What is Jesus talking about?

Chapter 10 starts with giving the 12 apostles powers of healing and driving out demons, then Jesus tells to preach the message of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Beginning with verse 16, Jesus starts warning the apostles about persecutions they can meet – flogging, imprisonment, even death – this all can happen to them for proclaiming the Gospel. Let’s look at the verse with its immediate context:

Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Matthew 10:21-23)

Is this paragraph giving you any hint Jesus speaks about afterlife?

I know, this is what’s preached in the very most churches and what the very most Christians believe. But who cares about majority? Just because billions of flies enjoy licking feces, does it mean that we should do it as well? Truth counts, not what others believe or do.

Before we understand any part of the Bible, we have to abandon our previous beliefs and notice exactly what the text says, reading it as if we never read it before. Otherwise, we won’t be reading the Bible. We’ll be reading our beliefs into the Bible. And that is the main reason for the existence of so many Christians denominations.

The most common way to understand Matthew 10:22 is “who stands firm in their deeds/belief system till they die will be saved from eternal punishment in hell” but note, such words are not there. Note the context! No one is asking, “Lord, what will happen when we die? Shall we fry when we die? Is there a way out from the eternal suffering after we die?”

Jesus is sending the apostles for a mission, here, on earth; He is talking about persecutions, here, on earth.

It should be clear by now that the words “save” or “saving/salvation” do not have one specific meaning, as in Greek, as in English. If I say to you, “Save me!” it may mean lots of things, depending on situation – lending money, feeding me, clothing, talking to someone about my situation, giving me a ride – I can go on and on. To tell what “saving” means, we always need to see the context!

 

And the context applies to a very specific time, place and people. In Matthew 10 it’s quite simple: the time – first half of first century; place – Near East (we could be a more specific, but it is in the Near East for sure); people – Jews.

Nothing applies to us.

 

One of the interpreting rules of the Bible (and not only the Bible) is that we do not read more than the text says. The largest part of the Bible is the stories – and while from them we can always draw conclusions and lessons for us, we can’t apply all words directly to us. Matthew 10:22 is exactly the case.

Jesus was talking about fleeing death and persecution, not hellish fire!

Many theologians (like J.W. McGarvey, Albert Barnes, F.F. Bruce, D.A. Carson or Theodor Zahn) believe Jesus is talking about the First Jewish-Roman war, with its culminating point – destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

I can’t find a better explanation. There are many hints in Matthew 10 – and other parallel passages like – Matthew 23-25, Luke 17) indicating beyond doubts that all the warnings and threats Jesus told indeed regarded situations that were supposed to happen within some years – not millenniums – from then. Let’s read this verse:

Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation. (Matthew 23:36)

Christian theologians show an amazing amount of imagination by trying to explain to us how “this generation” can still apply today. They say it can mean Israel as nation… people in general… Look then at Matthew 16:38:

Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom (Matthew 16:38)

Could it be said any clearer? I don’ think so. And if you read whole chapters 10, 16 and 23, you will see they all contain very similar warnings to the followers of Jesus and woes to enemies of the Gospel.

The conclusion is simple – in Matthew 10:22 the word “saved” again has nothing to do with something that will happen after we die. It is about being rescued from what is going to happen in about 40 years.

Please, take some time to look up the word “save” in Concordance or on a website like “Biblehub.com” or “Biblegateway.com”. Look in the whole Bible and find one – just one – reference – where beyond doubts it means salvation from suffering after death. Just one!

You won’t.

 

What then does the term “save” mean?

There isn’t just 1 answer. There are many.

In the Old Testament, salvation usually meant a physical rescue from an enemy, In Gospels – fleeing from the deadly siege of Jerusalem, in some of the Epistles – restoring a love relationship between people and God. In the whole Bible, “save” and “salvation” lots of times refer to healing from a sickness.

If you were taught to believe the common Christian theology, it will definitely take some time until you stop seeing “salvation” as saving from hellfire. It took me years. But it’s definitely worth it. The Bible should make much more sense then.

If I were to name the most helpful thing that ever happened to me, I would say – it was when I realized that the Bible was much more focused on its direct listeners, not us.

Have you ever seen the acronym “BIBLE = Basic Instructions Before Leaving earth?” It does mention earth… but in the sense of leaving it. Most of Christians like to see afterlife as the “real” world and life on earth as a prelude, introduction, something we should not focus on. The main focus is, as the acronym points out, what it’s going to be when we leave earth. Shall we be saved or not? Salvation – that’s what it’s all about.

The numbers I gave in the beginning – about the most common words in the Bible in comparison to the words “save” and “salvation” bear an important message. Even if salvation was about afterlife, we can’t see much focus the Bible gives to it. History and narration make 60% of the Bible – all about this life! End times prophecy is only about 2%, and there is a growing number of theologians who believe this number is actually close to zero.

 

Let’s face the facts! The Bible has instructions how to live on earth and make this life meaningful, hardly mentioning the obvious fact we need to leave one day. One more time – no one in the entire Bible worries about afterlife!

Most of Christians do not have a problem calling “irrelevant to us” the passage that tells us to stone to death for adultery (Leviticus 20:10) but they are quick to call me a heretic or misled when I say that the mission of Jesus was directed only to Israel even though Jesus Himself said it (Matthew 15:24).

I do believe the Bible is trustworthy but the very, very most of it is not directed to us and only after a thorough exegesis and interpretation we can formulate lessons for our lives.

 

Do you agree that the commandment of stoning for adultery is not directed at us?

 

Good! The same with the warnings Jesus gave about upcoming destruction! The same about the 7 letters to Churches at the beginning of Revelation!


Today millions of devoted Christians have problems falling asleep, thinking, “Am I saved?”. Please, sit down for one minute and carefully note this simple fact – no one in the Bible asks this question. No one worries. And many verses indicate today no one can answer, “No” to this question anyway. Jesus is called the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14)!

 

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Bible

Does the Bible really tell me so?

Were you ever in a situation when you suddenly discovered that the truth was completely not where you thought it was even though you had believed it for many years?

I think most of us were. Sometimes we think we know someone very well and after many years that person does something completely unpredictable. We were so wrong about them!

Or we were taught as children that cereal and skim milk is the best way to start the day and today many doctors say such breakfasts dramatically raise the chance of obesity.

Or… we were taught how to read the Bible.

 

Bible has always been important to me. As a small child I was given one of those Bible stories books and soon I almost memorized it. My motto was the Bible was the only thing I could trust as everything and everyone else was full of contradictions and you never knew when they were right or wrong.

 

But together with acknowledging the value of the Bible I also had to learn to acknowledge its complexity and difficulty.

I was born in Poland. Poland is an old country; it was founded in the 10th century but started being formed in early Middle Ages. The oldest known sentence written down in the Polish language (my native) however is a few hundred years younger – it comes from the 13th century. It has only 7 words… yet still experts are not quite sure what it exactly means!!

There are two versions of explanation and they differ completely!

You may think what’s significant about this.. listen, the sentence was written only 700 years ago yet we can’t be sure what it means! How can we then expect no problems with understanding the Bible, which started getting written over 3,500 years ago?

It is true that the very most of the translations we have are usually the result of many experts’ work… they say they try to make the result of their work as easy to be read and as accurate as possible, but somehow it’s still not that simple and different teams of language experts end up with diverse results. You can see it yourself by comparing certain verses between different translations – they can often show huge discrepancies. You will never find a single paragraph looking identical among hundreds of available translations.

What is the reason?

Most of my life I was sure the main problems were lingual and cultural, until I discovered something – I would dare say – shocking. I will soon get to that.

Thousands of years… languages that changed so much… cultural background… these are difficult issues, however, not that difficult if you are an expert working with many other experts. Come on! Today’s computers can translate lots of languages online, for free, in seconds, with just small mistakes; what makes anyone think that different groups of great experts can’t translate the Bible in a consistent way with only small discrepancies?

Apart from translation issues there is also another important thing – some believe it’s actually the most important: as we have lots of manuscripts that differ in various details, there is always a question – which ones should we choose? It’s definitely a complex issue; some call one manuscript the best while others call the same one the worst.

The funny thing is, however, these differences may still not be most important. Yes, some manuscripts skip some phrases while others have them. Some say Jehovah, some say the Lord or God. But something like this will never create a huge confusion or misunderstanding.

Something else can, though.

INCONSISTENCIES

 

There are a few Hebrew and Greek words and phrases that are translated in a terribly inconsistent way across popular Bible versions. The truth is, even if you take all 900 existing English translations, you won’t find 2 that have these words translated the same way. Ok, I didn’t check all 900… but I’ll buy you a dinner if you prove me wrong.

There are only two possible explanations of this situation – either these words are extremely difficult and no one ever knew what they exactly meant or… they are not really translated. They are interpreted.

The only real possibility is the second option is true. How do I know that? If the words I am talking about are so difficult, I am sure that many Bible translations would have notes stating that, right?

Or at least among thousands of books about the Bible that come up each year there are many that deal with this issue, right?

Nope. No notes. No books. Silence.

I think it should be broken.

* * *

Do you think questioning everything is a good thing?

I think it is. But the subject is not as simple as it sounds.

I grew up in a fairly religious family. In my teenage years I started questioning certain dogmas I had been made to believe. In time I started thinking about leaving the church I grew up in but I hesitated for a really long time and that time cost me a lot of anxiety. My whole family and most friends were against me. I’m glad they weren’t bad fanatics and they didn’t threaten to hurt me or anything like this, but the subject of religion caused huge fights in my home. I was told I betrayed God. I was told the devil possessed me. And I thought I was just… looking for truth, that I was getting to a closer knowledge of God. But it is easy to start doubting yourself when almost everybody you know says you are wrong.

In years it came to me I wasn’t betraying God. They might say I betrayed my church but I think it actually betrayed me.

I wasn’t looking for problems. I was looking for answers.

I did not question God. I questioned dogmas.

 

It is crucial that you will understand that by looking for truth and questioning everything you know you do not oppose God. God never told anyone to blindly believe what they were told. Actually, when Jesus came, numerous times he told people not to believe certain things they were taught.

I, too, am not trying to oppose God or undermine the authority of the Bible. What I am trying to do is just… to ask questions and look for answers.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)

* * *

Do you want your life to change? Do you crave a 180 degrees turn?

What you are reading now may very probably be written especially for you then.

Just please remember – listening to things we already know hardly ever changes our life.

We like going to churches, sitting back and listening to the Good News that we already know. Soon we memorize it. But it doesn’t bring any changes in your lives.

Did it bring a change that you are happy from in your own life?

Only listening to things we don’t yet know can bring change.

But… changing is not comfortable.

You always have a choice.

Listening to the same message and living the same life you have lived so far – do this if you’re already happy.

Stand up, challenge your mind and listen to something new if you’re not.

This website is about letting go of what you were told and starting to think on your own.

Soon you will discover that God is really brining good news. Not the twisted, perverted news that religion has for you, not the “turn or burn” gospel… but the message of love from the One who is love.

And by the way, John 3:16 does not mention everlasting life 😺  But we’ll get to this verse in time, there are far more important issues to discuss!

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Bible

Hell (2/2) – is this biblical?

In recent decades the subject of hell lost quite a lot of popularity. Even among Christians, where seems to be one of the major doctrines, only about half believe in its existence.

My previous post points out that the theory of hell is far from logical, but logic is not the main principle of Christianity (I know, it sounds bad, but I don’t mean it in a bad way – if God Almighty showed up and told me to do something against my logical thinking, I’d most probably do it).

In other words, just because I don’t understand something doesn’t give me a reason to refute it.

The principle of Christianity is…

The Bible.

Without beating around the bush I’ll say what I believe – the Bible doesn’t say a word about hell.

Some will disagree right away – they have Bibles and it does say, “Hell” in many places.

First of all, if your Bible says, “Hell” there’s a big chance it’s a pretty old translation. Most Bibles sold today doesn’t have this word or has it just a handful of times in the Bible.

 But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. (Proverbs 9:18., KJV)

But he knoweth not that the dead are there;
That her guests are in the depths of Sheol (Proverbs 9:18 ASV)

We need to look a little into the original words used in the Bible and don’t worry, you don’t need to be an expert to get it.

Some translations have the word hell over 40 times so before we go on we need to add one detail – we’re not wondering if the word “hell” is in the Bible, because in some translations it clearly is; we wonder if the Bible says anything about hell that is… Christian… …which is a place that has 2 characteristic features:

  1. is a punishment

  2. has no end

In the original languages of the Bible there are only 3 words that are translated into hell, one in the Old Testament, 2 in New. Simple!

SHEOL/HADES

Sheol equals hades, every time the Bible was translated from Hebrew to Greek hades replaced sheol (compare Psalms 16:10 and Acts 2:31). We can find sheol 64 times and hades 11. They aren’t popular words then, let’s compare them to Lord (8,000 times) or “earth” or “town” (1,000 each).

The problem is the Bible never defines these words and we need to investigate how they are used. When we look at all sheol/hades  examples we clearly see that the place isn’t any punishment, it’s  somewhere people “go” after they die. “Go” isn’t literal, the Bible doesn’t specify if they actually go, or are thrown there, if they’re even aware of it of… if this is even a place, not a state.

One thing is certain – everyone goes there after they die, including Jesus (Acts 2:31), which can lead to believe that sheol… isn’t actually any supernatural place of living for human souls, it may just be…

… a mere grave.

Acts 2:31 tells us something interesting:

Acts 2:31, NIV: “Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.”

If hell is supposed to be a punishment and has no end… it can’t be sheol then. Jesus didn’t have anything to be punished for and He didn’t stay in sheol forever.

The idea of Sheol being just the grave has some good reasoning to it, there’s just one place that doesn’t fit well with it, and one of my soon-to-be articles will be about it – the story of Lasarus and the rich guy. Before I translate this article here, you can just believe my word… or not – when I say that the story, though spoken by Jesus it is not a real story but a very interesting allegory.

GEHENNA

This word is translated in almost all Bibles as hell or hell fire. Nobody questions one fact – Gehenna is an actual place on Earth, known also as Valley of Hinnom.

It is mentioned in Gospels 11 times and once in the Epistle of James. James though uses it not as a description of a place, but as an adjective describing our language, figuratively.

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell (James 3:6, NIV)

It should then make things simpler as it is only Jesus who uses this word as a noun. Let’s look what this word means.

 

Valley of Hinnom had a historical meaning, it was mentioned in the Old Tesament (2 Chronicles 28:3.33:6, Jeremiah 7:31.19:2-6), it was the place was was used to human sacrifices. People sacrificed their children there. Horror! This place was considered cursed.

There is today a common belief among Bible scholars that the place was also used for burning garbage and people from all over the place were burning their waste there so its fire was always on. I have tried to find a reliable source of this information but… I failed.

Today when we, living let’s say, the USA, hear the word “Manhattan”, most of us will instantly picture something like sky scrapers, huge traffic, bright neons at night… But to those who never heard of Manhattan sayings like “it’s like Manhattan” mean nothing.

We know for sure that when Jesus mentioned Gehenna to Jews it meant something horrible, something bad, but we won’t find a definition was exactly it was.

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where

“‘The worms that eat them do not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’

(Mark 9:43-48, NIV)

 

I used to read this passage many times… and I felt fear. I was scared. Dead scared. Today I am aware I wasn’t actually seeing the passage, I saw whatever religion decided it was supposed to mean.

Had I been able to think logically back then… I could have noticed a few interesting things, with the most important one being…

This passage clearly refers to the living people, not the dead ones!

When is Jesus telling us to cut off our hand to avoid hell? Now, or in the afterlife?

Common interpretation is that cutting off our hands is in this world but judgement/hell/kingdom of God, but this passage clearly shows that all of these things are in one realm. Christian doctrine teaches that when you die here, no matter what happens to your body, your soul or future body will not be affected, but Jesus clearly says that these hands won’t grow back before the judgement.

This is happening ON EARTH, while people are STILL ALIVE, thus… can have NOTHING to do with afterlife. And nothing to do..

WITH US.

Phrases like hell, fire (in parallel verses described as… ETERNAL FIRE) and last, but not least, Kingdom of God…

It’s all this life, folks.

Yes, I agree it sounds like a stupid heresy, especially if you grew up as a Christian. It did to me, for decades.

Please remember – this Bible passage was originally written thousands of years ago, in a totally different reality, and in a kind of language (Koine) that hasn’t been used since IV century. It is absolutely impossible to translate it beyond doubts… it’s a truth that no one admits but let’s find 2 different translations of that small passage that will sound the same.

We won’t.

We think we know what it says but what we know is the interpretation we’re given by translators and religion.

It takes a while to look at a passage yourself but… it’s like your life depends on it, right?

Mark 9:43-48 has an interesting construction. The same term is, in parallel, explained in 3 different ways:

Eternal life (1) means the Kingdom of God and means life (3)

Unquenched fire (1) means hell-Gehenna (2) and means a place where the worm doesn’t die (3).

Eternal in our language means lasting with no end, but the original word, aionios, is the subject of lots of disagreements.

We find also in the ancient Greek translation of the Bible, Vulgata, and we see lots of inconsistencies between different translations. The world that supposedly means “eternal” is sometimes translated as “old” (Psalm 77:5) or ancient (Proverbs 22:28). If one word is translated in so many ways, it usually means the translators need to choose…

And their choice will course depend on what they already believe.

It seems weird they use the word “eternal” translating Hebrew 6:2. What on earth is eternal judgment? A trial in a cosmic court which never ends? Keeps getting postponed?

The word aionios comes from “aion” which means has 2 basic meanings – age and time. Translators will also tell you it means eternal but nowhere in the Bible is this word defined in this way!

In my old religious days I used to also think that the worms which “do not die” will be inside our bodies, eating us alive… I am not even sure to be honest if it’s religion that’s taught me that, it might be as well… lack of explanation (probably on purpose) plus my vivid imagination!

But the explanation of this term is… in the Bible itself. As usual.

“And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” (Isaiah 66:24)

Worms. Eating. Dead. Bodies.

DEAD

Here, on earth.

The worms will eat the flesh and the disgrace of their death will be finalized.

Again and again, similar to Old Testament prophets, Jesus is warning against military actions that can result in their physical death.

And my comparison to the prophets is important. The Bible is a uniquely consistent book. Jesus behaved in many ways like Old Testaments prophets, which is for example described in the parable of the Tenants in Mark 12:1-12.

 

Back to the subject – Mark 9 says nothing about heaven, hell or purgatory.

So what is it about?

The next paragraph is crucial for understanding the subject.

In AD 70 there was an unbelievable massacre. Romans surrounded and attacked Jerusalem. As the best known historian of their times, Titus Flavius Josephus, write, even a million Jews could have died then. The citizens of the city were murdered and the buildings burned. The New Testament has a lot of warnings about this event but religion completely twists their meaning and refers them to some everlasting hellfire in the afterlife.

 

Portray this:

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, comes to this world. He cares for every single sheep and… Israel is facing an event that can cause hundreds of thousands of these sheep to die.

Something like this in the history of Israel can be compared to only one thing. Holocaust.

Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.  (Matthew 24:34)

This verse is extremely uncomfortable for lots of denominations and their prophets who tried to predict the date of “the end of the world” as they assumed it’s that end that Jesus was talking about.

What is “generation”? It can mean anything if we assume certain things before… like religion does. When they assume Jesus was talking about the end of the world, nothing can change it, so the generation can mean for example… Israel? Or human race? Christians, Church?

 

The original word is simple and leaves little doubt. “Genea” is in the Bible 43 times and it always means a generation of people:

 

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. (Matthew 1:17)

Fun fact – easy calculations tell us the biblical generation is 44 or 45 years.

 

So… the things Jesus discussed, including all events that mainstream Christianity refers to, is not going to happen at the end of the world.

It already happened.

In AD 70.

Then Romans broke into Jerusalem and burned the city together with its inhabitants.

In…

everlasting fire.

GEHENNA
IS
THE SIEGE
OF JERUSALEM

There are only 2 options.

If  Mark 9:43-48 speaks about actual hell as the everlasting torture for humans after they die, there are only 2 options to avoid it: either you will never commit any sin or you will cut off most of the members of your body.

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[a][b] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[c] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matthew 5:22)

Seriously? Am I supposed to fry forever because I called someone a fool?

If so, the only chance no to go hell is.. being spotless.

Which is not the case, at least with me

“if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off”… has anyone heard even the worst religious fanatics doing this?

How come we get to decide what to treat literally and what figuratively?

There are over 2 billion of Christians in the world and most of them believe Jesus does warn people against hell in these passages. How many of them have cut their hands?

I haven’t heard of any case.

Do they not care what Jesus said?

I believe the words of Jesus in the Bible are real. Why have I not cut off my hand? I try to read the Bible in its context. If threat of everlasting hell was real and Jesus really was telling people by mutilating themselves they can help it I’m sure at least some of the people would have done it.

Or at least they would have debated about.

NOT A WORD.

Plus, seriously? If I cut off my hand or gouge out my eye, will I become sinless?

I’ll have other members to sin with. Humans are created in God’s image, thus creative 😺

I know that for a mind that had been set in religious thinking for many years it is very hard to stop seeing this passage as a referral to hell. But it is possible. Your logic can win if you stop, question everything and double check if what religion was teaching you is real.

Maybe it is? Maybe I’m wrong? Checking won’t hurt, quite the contrary, your beliefs will become firmer!

I know, I know, vast majority of these 2 billions Christians believe it’s all about hell.

There’s much more flies in the world though, and vast majority of them enjoy sitting on feces.

Am I supposed to do the same?

Sometimes numbers don’t matter. And only dead fish swim with the current.

Gehenna is a warning about the terrible mayhem that was about to happen within several years. The main goal of Jesus coming here was to warn Jews against it.

Israel wouldn’t listen though and the very most of Jewish population in Jerusalem was killed.

So… is there anything in the Bible about hell?

Nothing.

There is something about hades-sheol that is a grave for all people.

There is something Gehenna, a historical event.

If hell was real it would be most terrifying reality we could imagine. Christians believing it should not cease to spend all their time trying to make people convert.

And the apostles should constantly warn people to make sure they believed the right way and make sure their families and friends and all others believed as well or else…

There is not a word like this in the Epistles though.

Religion took the amazing Bible and twisted just several of its verses and have the whole world convinced  that most of God’s children will end up in eternal torment, cast away from Him and forgotten by their loved ones.

I am utterly amazed at me myself believing it for almost 40 years.

Freeing your mind isn’t simple. It may, and probably take, years before you really feel free. But isn’t any effort worth it?

I can testify. It was the biggest positive change in my life. For all these decades I was desperately trying to make the Bible tell me if God is really going to love me forever.

Once I found out, I literally already rest in peace, and I am able to focus on what’s important in life.

This life isn’t easy but knowing it all comes to a happy end without a shadow of a doubt is what makes the difference! You won’t have to wonder anymore why God made such a horrible punishment – it was only invented in religious leaders’ minds!

 

 

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