“And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, who wrought
signs before him, wherewith he seduced them who received the character of
the beast, and who adored his image. These two were cast alive into the
pool of fire, burning with brimstone. Where they were tormented day and
night, for ever and ever” (Rev. 19:20).
“...and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was
thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15).
Biographers of the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Charles Taze
Russell, all agree that his rejection of an eternal hell was based on his
inability to reconcile the existence of such with the teaching that “God is
love” (1 John 4:16). He preferred to believe that the souls of the wicked
were simply annihilated at death. The following quote sums up the
Witnesses’ objection to the doctrine of hell:
“The doctrine of a burning hell where the wicked are tortured
eternally after death cannot be true, mainly for four reasons: (i) It is
wholly unscriptural; (ii) it is unreasonable; (iii) it is contrary to
God’s love; and (iv) it is repugnant to justice.”¹
The Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the Hebrew word sheol (and its Greek
equivalent hades) actually refers not to hell but to “the grave.” It is true that
in certain contexts sheol does have that meaning (e.g., Gen. 37:35; 1 Kgs.
2:6; Job 21:13) but to claim that this is its only meaning is inaccurate. Sheol
has a wider range of meanings such as the “pit” of the nether world (Job
33:24-28; Ps. 88 (87):4; Is. 38:18), “gates of death” (Job 38:17) or
“chambers of death” (Prov. 7:27). In all these verses sheol is a place where
the souls of the dead go. But in the parable of Lazarus and Dives (St. Luke
16:19ff.) St. Luke uses the word hades to describe specifically a place of
punishment indistinguishable from hell, as it is traditionally understood.
The Hebrew gehenna is another word which means hell. It appears twelve
times in the New Testament and is derived from ge-hinnom, the name for
the valley southwest of Jerusalem where altars were erected for human
sacrifices to Moloch (2 Kgs. 23:10). This valley was also used by potters
for their sulphur furnaces and in the time of Christ it was employed as a
1
Let God be True, p. 99.
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