Misunderstood and Mistranslated Words of Jesus
Hell-believers argue that Jesus Christ Himself preached more about hell than any other person in the Bible. In this chapter, we shall see how, where and why hell-believers misunderstand and mistranslate Jesus’s words. However, before we do this, let us first highlight four scriptures spoken by Jesus Christ Himself, which categorically prove without any shadow of doubt that He did not believe in hell.
Text 1
Luke 23:34
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
This is an amazing prayer request from Jesus Christ to God the Father. Think about it. There is no greater sin one could commit than to murder the very Son of God, and yet, there was not even the slightest hint of any revenge or unforgiveness in Jesus’s heart towards His unbelieving murderers. We know for certain that Father God will grant His Son’s request. Surely, this wonderful and gracious single request from Jesus to His Father God, for the forgiveness of His enemies, is ample proof in and of itself that Jesus Christ did not believe in hell.
Text 2
Matthew 21:31b
Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you (Religious Jews).”
In this verse, Jesus Christ was speaking to ‘the chief priests and the elders’ when they confronted Him in the temple (Matthew 21:23). The self-righteous religious Jews were Jesus’s enemies, and they delivered Him to the Roman Authorities to crucify Him. Please note that although these religious Jews died as unbelievers, Jesus Christ knew and took it for granted that ultimately, in God’s time and order, they would repent of their sin of unbelief in Him and confess that He is indeed the only begotten Son of God and the Savour of the whole world. Hence, these self-righteous religious Jews, the enemies of Jesus Christ, will also enter the Kingdom of God, but not before the sinners whom they had condemned, like ‘tax collectors and harlots’.
Do we believe Jesus’s words? Surely, this would have been an ideal opportunity for Jesus to warn those chief priests and elders about hell, but instead, Jesus said that even they are destined to enter the Kingdom of God. Did Jesus believe in hell? Absolutely not!
Text 3
Matthew 5:43-44
43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’. 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
‘Love your enemies’ is what Christ says to His disciples. This is another powerful scripture that absolutely proves that Jesus Christ did not believe in hell. How could He have believed in hell? He came to die for all His enemies, for the ungodly, for the whole of this fallen sinful world of humanity (Romans 5:6, 1 John 2:2). Yes, there is a judgement awaiting all people who die as unbelievers, but it will be a refining, merciful judgement. Psalm 66:3-4 says, “Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power, Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.”
Text 4
John 12:32 (KJV)
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
Jesus was lifted up on the cross to die for the sins of the whole world and the cross of Jesus Christ has unlimited power to draw all to Him. Please note that the KJV verse above has added the word men when the Greek Manuscripts simply say, ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me’. This means that all sinful fallen men and all sinful fallen angels, without a single exception, will be reconciled to God through the glorious work of the cross, as clearly stated in Colossians 1:15-20.
The four scriptures that we have just looked at, spoken by Jesus Christ Himself, categorically and absolutely prove that Jesus did not believe in hell.
Let us now examine in detail what Jesus Christ is supposed to have said about ‘hell’ and understand how His words, about the future judgement of all unbelievers and fallen angels, have been misunderstood and mistranslated by hell-believers.
Firstly, we will remind ourselves of a few salient points that we have covered in Chapters 15, 16 and 17.
The doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell is founded upon a combination of mistranslations and misinterpretations of certain original Hebrew and Greek words: sheol, hades, tartarus, gehenna, owlam, aion and aionios, which first occurred when Jerome translated Scripture into the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate in the early fifth century.
The truth of the matter is that there is not one single word in the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts of the Bible that means hell. Hell is a man-invented, pagan, unchristian, heretical belief that was first embraced and christianised by Roman Catholicism and incorporated into the Bible by Jerome through his Latin Vulgate in the early history of Christianity. Also, Jesus Christ never spoke about ‘everlasting’ fire and punishment, as erroneously translated in verses such as Matthew 18:8, 25:41 and 25:46 in popular versions of the Bible that support the doctrine of hell. The correct translation of these terms is age-to-come ‘age-lasting’ fire and punishment, as we explained in detail in the previous chapter, Chapter 17.
For the rest of this chapter, we shall examine what Jesus Christ means when He uses terms like ‘perish’, ‘where their worm does not die’, ‘and the fire is not quenched’, ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, and other such terms which have all been misunderstood and misinterpreted by hell-believers. We have allocated one whole chapter, the next chapter, to understanding the true biblical meaning of Jesus’s parable of ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’, which has been the most widely used proof source for hell-believers.
‘Perish’
Luke 13:3
I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish (apollymi).
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish (apollymi) but have everlasting life.
These scriptures tell us that an unrepentant person who does not believe in God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, will perish. John 3:16 above is the most quoted verse, but hell-believers distort the true meaning of this scripture.
Yes of course, there is only one WAY to be saved and that is to believe in the true Christ of the Bible that He is indeed God’s only begotten Son and the Saviour of the whole world. So yes, there is going to be an age-to-come righteous judgement of God for billions and billions of people who die as unbelievers, which means nearly all of humanity, and they will all have to ‘perish’ in the Lake of Fire. However, the Greek word apollymi translated to mean ‘perish’, in verses such as Luke 13:3 and John 3:16 above, does not mean to be tortured in hell forever or annihilated. Let us now understand the true meaning of apollymi in these verses.
In the Bible, apollymi is translated into English to give several meanings: to perish, to destroy, to put to ruin, to render useless, to kill and to lose (Strong’s G622). In the beautiful story of the lost son, the prodigal son, given in Luke 15, Jesus Christ uses this very same Greek word apollymi.
Luke 15:24
‘For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost (apollymi), and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
The parable of the lost son proves categorically that the lost (apollymi) son was not lost forever. From this parable, we know that the lost or ‘perished’ son was able to repent of his sin and he was gladly accepted back by his father with great celebration. So, when Jesus Christ says in Luke 13:3 that ‘unless you repent you will all likewise perish‘, Jesus, does not mean that all those who do not repent will be annihilated or tortured eternally in hell. However, Jesus does mean that repentance is necessary for salvation.
The true biblical repentance is the repentance from the sin of unbelief to belief in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ which is: that Father God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to become flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary in order to die on the cross for the universal salvation of the whole world, and He is indeed the Saviour of the whole world without a single exception.
It is God’s determined will that ultimately all, in His time and order, either in this life or in the next life, will come willingly and thankfully to believe in the true Gospel of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, Yeshua Elohim, Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:3-6); and we can be sure that God’s Sovereign will cannot be frustrated by man´s fallen free will.
Matthew 10:28
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy (apollymi) both soul and body in hell (gehenna).
In this NKJV scripture, the Greek word gehenna has been mistranslated as hell. Christ says that we must not fear men who at worst can only kill us physically, but they cannot ‘kill the soul’ meaning they cannot take away the resurrected immortal life, which God will grant to all people. However, we need to fear God in this life, because if we don’t then there is judgement awaiting us in gehenna, meaning in the Lake of Fire, during the Great White Throne Judgement Age.
Notice in Matthew 10:28 above, how Christ once again uses the same word apollymi. The destruction (apollymi) of ‘both soul and body’ in gehenna refers to the Second Death, which is the spiritual death of the sinful Adamic nature ‘the old man’ that will be experienced by all unbelievers in the future when they are cast into God’s refining Lake of Fire during the Great White Throne Judgement Age. Yes, every unbeliever’s sinful Adamic nature ‘the old man’ has to perish (be killed, destroyed) before the righteous ‘new man’ in Christ can be born in him. All unbelievers, who will rise at the Second Resurrection in their immortal, yet still unsaved bodies, will die the Second Death in the Lake of Fire to become born-again believers. We cover this subject in detail in Chapter 12, The Great White Throne Judgement Age – Part 1.
Let us now look at a scripture from the Old Testament, which agrees with and confirms what Jesus Christ says, that unbelievers first need to ‘perish’ before they can come to know God.
Psalm 83:16-18
16 Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O LORD. 17 Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; yes, let them be put to shame and perish, 18 that they may know that You, whose name alone is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.
Please understand and believe what this scripture is saying. It says that unbelievers will need to firstly be confounded and dismayed forever, meaning totally and completely, and they must be ashamed and perish, meaning their ‘old man’ must die (see Chapter 12), in order to become ‘new men’ born again in Christ so that that they may know the Most High God.
The only way to know the Most High Father God is through the gift of God-given faith to enable them to repent of their sin of unbelief and come to belief in the true Gospel of His only begotten Son. The Bible is clear that it is God’s determined will that ultimately all unbelievers will repent, in God’s time and order, either in this life or in the next life.
Luke 19:9-10
9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost (apollymi).”
Once again, we see the same Greek word apollymi is used in this scripture. How many are lost? All people are born lost with a sinful fallen Adamic nature ‘the old man’. The Bible says that there is not one righteous, no, not even one (Romans 3:10). Jesus Christ will seek and save all lost people, without a single exception, as man’s fallen rebellious free will cannot frustrate God’s sovereign will to save all of the lost.
The powerful truth of the Bible is that God has solved the problem of sin, once and for all, through the sacrifice made on the cross by His only begotten Son for the sins of the whole world (Romans 6:10, 1 John 2:2). The Bible says that Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6), and when sin abounds, grace abounds much more (Romans 5:20). Yes, everybody is born a sinner because of one man’s sin,
Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12), but everybody is destined to become righteous because of one Man’s Righteousness, Jesus Christ’s Righteousness (Romans 5:18 -19).
It should now be abundantly clear that when Jesus Christ uses the Greek word apollymi when referring to the future judgement of unbelievers in gehenna (mistranslated as hell), He does not mean that unbelievers will be annihilated, or tortured for eternity in a place called hell. Jesus is clearly referring to the future age-to-come, age-lasting, corrective, refining and merciful judgement of all unbelievers in the Lake of Fire, during the Great White Throne Judgement Age.
‘Where their worm does not die’
Mark 9:44
Where ‘Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’
What did Christ mean by ‘where their worm does not die’? Let us understand the spiritual significance of the term, ‘their worm’.
Mark 9:42-44 (KJV)
42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in Me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell (gehenna), into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Here, Jesus gives a warning not to offend ‘these little ones who believe in Me’. So, who are ‘these little ones’? These little ones are God’s Elect, all those who become truly born-again Christians in this lifetime, those who have fully accepted by repentance and faith the true Gospel of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, Yeshua Elohim.
Jesus Christ says that those who offend ‘the little ones’ will face severe judgement in God’s consuming fire, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’. It is better for an offender of ‘the little ones’ to take a drastic action (compared to cutting off the offending part of the body) and repent of his offence before he dies, than to have to face the fiery, refining judgement of God in the Lake of Fire (gehenna).
Whose worm does not die? Is it the worm of ‘the little ones‘ or the worm of the offenders? Please notice that the word ‘worm’ is singular, so we are not talking about many worms, but only one worm, their worm. Here is the wonderful scripture, which reveals exactly who ‘their worm’ is.
Psalm 22:6
But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people.
Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm. It is a prophecy of the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus humbled Himself on the cross to die for the sins of the whole world so that we might all have God’s Righteousness through the free gift of Salvation.
In Psalm 22:6 above, Jesus categorically says that He is a Worm. On the cross, Jesus Christ humbled Himself like a worm for all of mankind and we must learn from His example of great humility. All hard-hearted unbelievers will be humbled in the Lake of Fire and come to understand the sacrifice of their Saviour.
So, the glorious and amazing truth is that ‘their worm’ who ‘does not die’ in Mark 9:44 above is none other than the Saviour of all people who died on the cross for the sins of the whole world. ‘Their Worm’ will reconcile to Father God all things on earth and all things in heaven having made peace through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:19-20). ‘Their Worm’ is the resurrected immortal Saviour of the whole world, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will not and cannot die anymore.
‘And the fire is not quenched’
Mark 9:48-49 (also see Isaiah 66:24)
48 Where ‘Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’ 49 For everyone will be seasoned with fire, every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.
Let us remind ourselves that the Lake of Fire is both God’s physical and spiritual cleansing of the earth and its unbelieving inhabitants during the Great White Throne Judgement Age. God’s age-lasting refining Lake of Fire, during the Great White Throne Judgement Day, will not be quenched until all sinful fallen humanity and all sinful fallen angels have been refined, purified and reconciled to God. We have covered the subject of the Great White Throne Judgement Age in great detail in Chapters 12 and 13.
‘Weeping and gnashing of teeth’
Matthew 8:12
But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The self-righteous religious Jews and ‘Christians’ who think that they are the sons of the Kingdom, will be shocked on the Day of Judgement to hear Jesus´s words,
“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23).
They will weep because of great disappointment and gnash their teeth in despair and anger because all of their religious works were a complete waste of time, and to no avail for their salvation. These self-righteous religious people will have to first endure God’s refining Lake of Fire judgement, during the Great White Throne Judgement Age, before they come to believe in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
‘More tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, and for Tyre and Sidon’
Matthew 10:15
Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that city!
Matthew 11:22
But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.
When Jesus walked on earth, He personally did many mighty works in the towns and cities of Israel, but most Jews did not accept Him as the Son of God and did not repent of their unbelief. Jesus says that these unbelieving Jews are accountable for their unbelief, and on the Day of Judgement they will have to undergo a greater level of judgement than the openly immoral cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the pagan cities of Tyre and Sidon. This is because these cities would have repented if Jesus had done the same mighty works in them as He had done in the cities of Israel.
The Bible is clear that there will be different levels of judgement, punishment and humbling experiences for unbelievers in the Lake of Fire, during the Great White Throne Judgement Age. However, all God’s judgements flow out of His love and their purpose is to ultimately lead people to repentance and belief in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. God’s judgements are absolutely not for the purpose of eternally torturing people in a so-called hell. Our great God is neither a great tormentor nor a great annihilator, but He is the great Saviour of the world.
What about Judas – would it have been better for him if he had not been born?
Matthew 26:24
The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man (Judas) by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.
The meaning of the verse above is that it would have been better for Judas not to have been born to betray Jesus, because Judas will have to go through God’s Lake of Fire judgement before he can be reconciled to God.
If the doctrine of hell were true, then it would be better for most people not to have been born, because most of humanity die as unbelievers. If this were the case, then all women should immediately stop having children, because, the chances are that their children would end up in this so-called hell of eternal torture.
What about the ‘unpardonable sin’?
Matthew 12:31-32
31 Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
To properly understand this scripture, it is necessary to remember that God is working out His Plan for the universal salvation of the whole world in seven biblical Ages. In Chapter 5, we give details of the Seven Ages in God’s Plan for All.
Jesus says that the sins of those unbelieving Pharisees standing before Him will not be forgiven during ‘this age’, nor will their sins be forgiven in ‘the age to come’, but Jesus did not say that their sins will remain unforgiven for all ages.
The Pharisees blasphemed against the Holy Spirit by falsely attributing the miraculous works performed by Jesus Christ, through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, to the works of demons. Jesus said that those unbelieving Pharisees would all die unforgiven ‘in this age’, which is the current Fourth Age, and they would remain unforgiven ‘in the age to come’ which is the Fifth Age, the Millennial Age. However, all unbelieving humanity, including those Pharisees who blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, will be forgiven during the Sixth Age, which will be the Great White Throne Judgement Age, when they will firstly have endure God’s refining Lake of Fire judgement before they can be forgiven and saved.
What about the Jesus’s statement that only a few will be saved?
Matthew 22:14
For many are called, but few are chosen
It is very important to understand that God’s Elect believers are very few in number. They are called and chosen to believe the true Gospel in this life, before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. As we have shown from Scripture, in Chapter 9, the total number of God’s Elect, the Firstfruits, are only 144,000. They are chosen before the foundation of the world, from the nation of Israel and the Gentile nations, to rise in the First Resurrection as the Bride of Christ, at the return of Christ. The glorious purpose of God’s Elect, the Firstfruits, is for God to use them in the evangelising work of salvation to reap the Great Harvest of the rest of humanity in the ages to come, as we explain in detail in this book.
What about the resurrection of condemnation?
John 5:28-29
28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (krisis, meaning judgement).
Please note that the Greek word krisis has been translated as condemnation and should have been more accurately translated as judgement (Strong’s G2920).
The Bible speaks of two resurrections, the First Resurrection and the Second Resurrection, which are separated by the thousand-year Millennial Age of Christ’s rule on earth. The First Resurrection is the resurrection of life when the Saints, God’s Elect Bride of Christ, the 144,000 Firstfruits, will be raised in their saved immortal glorified bodies at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The Second Resurrection is the resurrection of judgement. It occurs when the rest of humanity are resurrected at the end of Christ’s Millennial Age to face God’s judgement in the Great White Throne Judgement Day. This is when all believers who lived during Christ’s Millennial Age will be judged righteous as their names are written in the Book of Life. However, all unbelievers (those who have done evil) from throughout the Ages will have to face God’s refining, yet merciful, Lake of Fire judgement, as we explain in detail in Chapter 12.
What about everlasting punishment?
Matthew 25:46
And these will go away into everlasting (aionios) punishment, but the righteous into eternal (aionios) life.
We fully looked into this mistranslated verse in the previous chapter, Chapter 17. This verse is the most frequently quoted verse used in defence of the doctrine of hell. The correct translation of this verse, as follows, reveals God’s merciful age-to-come, age-lasting, corrective judgement of all unbelievers in the Lake of Fire.
Matthew 25:46
And these will go away into age-to-come age-lasting (aionios) corrective punishment (kolasis), but the righteous into age-to-come eternal (aionios) life.
This is indeed the true meaning of this verse, as originally inspired by God’s Spirit, and it does not introduce any contradiction whatsoever into the Word of God.
What about the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus?
The parable of ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’, as given in Luke 16:19-31, is about the mystery of the Kingdom of God. This parable is the most misunderstood of all of Jesus’s parables. As previously mentioned, we have allocated the next chapter, Chapter 19, to explain this parable in detail.
We have now fully refuted all of the so-called proof texts, spoken by Jesus Himself, which are used by hell-believers to support their unbiblical false doctrine of eternal torture in hell. As we have seen from Scripture, Jesus Christ did not believe in hell and He did not teach hell.
Additional Misunderstood Texts
There are some additional texts in the Bible, not directly spoken by Jesus, but used by hell-believers in support of the doctrine of hell. Let us now examine two of these texts; Hebrews 6:4-6 and Hebrews 10:26-27.
Text 1
Hebrews 6:4-6
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
Please note that these people who hear the good word of God and reject it, only taste but do not eat and digest it. They merely taste the Bread of Life without actually eating it. They have a degree of mind understanding of the Gospel, but not the full heart understanding of it. They are tares, but not wheat. The seed (the good word of God) is sown on their poor soil, which bears no fruit and dies.
However, please note that the scripture above does not say that people who reject the truth of the Gospel are lost forever. Yes, it is impossible for people who end up rejecting and falling away from the truth of the Gospel to renew them again to repentance in this life before they die, but they are not lost forever. Nobody can be lost forever because the Bible clearly states in numerous scriptures, many of which are quoted in this book, that God who is the Saviour of the world will save all people, without a single exception.
Text 2
Hebrews 10:26-27(RSV)
26 For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries.
God views a man as ‘sinning deliberately’ when he rejects the truth of the Gospel that the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, is indeed the Saviour of the whole world, after having had this truth clearly preached to him. However, such people are not saved in the first place, during this life before they die, because they are not God’s Elect, the true believers. Such people who ‘sin deliberately’ are accountable for their sin of unbelief, and they will have to face God’s fiery judgement in His consuming, refining Lake of Fire before they can be reconciled to Him.
Conclusion
During the Great White Throne Judgement Age, God’s Lake of Fire judgement will instil Godly fear in the hearts of uncountable billions of resurrected unbelieving people. It will be an age-to-come, age-lasting, humbling and refining corrective judgement from a loving Father God who chastises His rebellious children to bring them, through the gift of God-given faith, to repentance from the sin of unbelief to come to belief in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, in God’s time and His order, all of them will be reconciled to God and they will all enter into the Eternal Kingdom of God of the New Heaven and the New Earth, as sons of God.
Most certainly, our Lord Jesus Christ did not believe in or preach hell anywhere in the Bible. He preached the glorious Gospel of the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness for the reconciliation and salvation of ALL, without a single exception.