Going to Hell for All the Right Reasons

What is hell? What does the term mean? Jesus gives us a picture of the valley of the Gehenna; it’s really a place of permanency. It’s a garbage dump. It’s the incinerator outside of the Jerusalem walls where there’s perpetual burning; people throw their garbage over into that valley. Jesus talks about hell. He says, "The worm doesn’t die; there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Hades is not a final resting place for the damned dead; it’s a detention center for the damned dead. It’s like the county jail. Offenders don’t go there for a life sentence, or stay there for 50 years. They stay there and wait for the judge to call them for their sentencing. If guilty, they are sent to a correctional facility.

When did Jesus go there? Some would say Jesus went there right after He was buried; He went down to the prison, preached to the spirits, and rose on the third day. Perhaps Jesus went there after the resurrection; and on His way to ascend to the throne in heaven, He stopped off at the prison and made an announcement of His victory.

He did not appear in Hades as a prophet and say, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." He did not appear as a priest and say, "I have laid down My life for you." However, He appeared as a King and said, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever." Whether Jesus went to hell and preached to the spirits before the resurrection or after the resurrection is debatable. The fact is that He did it. We don’t have to worry about sequence or fight about chronology: the fact is that He did it.

Where is this prison? We think of heaven as being above us, so this prison must be beneath us, right? In John 11:41, Jesus gets ready to raise Lazarus. He looked up and talked to someone by the name of Father. On the day of Jesus’ ascension, the disciples are standing gazing into the sky as Jesus ascends into heaven (Acts 1:11). Heaven is up, therefore the prison must be down, right? If Paul is referring to himself in 2 Corinthians 12:2 as the one who was taken into the third heaven, if one believes in a multi-tiered heaven, then heaven must be up; therefore, the prison must be down, right? Paul states in 1 Thessalonians 4:17: "We shall be caught up together to meet Him in the air." Doesn’t this mean that the prison must be below?

Yet Paul says in Ephesians 2:2 that Satan is the prince and the power of air? Isn’t hell below us? And Ephesians 6:12 asserts that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers, against principalities, against spiritual weakness in high places. We sing, "I’ve got friends in high places." Christians have foes in high places. We cannot necessarily say hell is below.