Before moving on to the specific teaching of Jesus, it would be helpful to take a brief look at the way in which the Biblical understanding of this issue has developed.

Progressive Revelation

It is important to understand that the Bible provides a progressive revelation of God’s will for mankind. Initially, man lived in a state of fellowship with God and with a permanent access to ‘The Tree of Life’ that was able to make us effectively immortal (Gen 3:22). Thus, the question, ‘What happens when we die?’ was an irrelevance; and in the immediate aftermath of Adam’s sin it did not look as if much had happened – except that man’s fellowship with God was broken and he was expelled from the Garden of Eden. But now, as deceitfully promised by the Serpent, mankind had become ‘like God, knowing good and evil.’ Beforehand, his experience was only of good: now he began to experience evil (both internal and external), the miracle of new life, the bitterness of hatred and death and the frightening inability to discover what would actually happen to him when he died. At this point, all he knew was that his body was destined to rot back into the ground.

But he had one great consolation. The God whose trust he had betrayed still cared about him (Gen 3:21) and had made a prediction against the Serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15) Neither Adam nor the Serpent knew what that meant. Indeed, it was important that the Serpent did not know: for it was a part of God’s plan that the Serpent himself should be complicit in bringing about his own downfall.

But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory, which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. (1Co 2:7-8)

Over the centuries that followed God gradually revealed more about his ultimate purpose: but always in ways that continued to conceal his ultimate strategy whilst teaching us more about the principles of God’s goodness and justice – and the critical importance of developing a faith relationship with God.

• Gen 5:24. Enoch disappears one day in circumstances that defy rational explanation. Did his tracks just end suddenly with a discarded garment and no sign of struggle, like Elijah in later years (2Kings 2:11-13)? We don’t know: but those left behind concluded that, because he was known to have made nearness to God his first priority, God must have granted his wish.
• Gen 6:5-8:22. Evil escalates so much that God decides that it is necessary to halt its spread by an immediate death sentence. Only Noah – a man who, like Enoch, walked with God, lived righteously and obeyed God’s voice – is spared that immediate judgement, along with his family.
• … and so the story continues, with successive incidents reinforcing one, other or both the concepts that God will pay back evil on those that do evil: but that, somehow, in spite of the obvious evil and mortality that had befallen mankind, God was still seeking our company and death need not be the end for those who truly sought Him.

That is not to say that there were no other prophecies pointing towards the coming of Jesus. As time went on, there were more and more.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to, when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow them. (1Pe 1:10-11)

Nevertheless, the manner in which these prophecies would be fulfilled remained a mystery; with individual believers at times alternating between hope and despair. I will single out two further examples for particular illustration…

Job, in the middle of all his complaining, comes out with a real gem of spiritual insight:

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; (Job 19:25-26)

As far as we can tell, Job has never been told this by God or any preceding prophet. In fact, it appears from Job 7:9 that this idea had not occurred to him previously. Yet he does not appear to be spiritually in tune with God at the time! He is simply reading the clues from God’s previous dealings with man and placing his faith in the goodness and ultimate justice of God. So he concludes that deliverance must come – even if he has to wait till the end of the world.

There is a similar example in Psalm 49:1-20. The psalmist describes this as a ‘riddle’ – a question that appears to have no rational answer but does make sense when finally seen from the correct perspective. He starts by asking how it is that he can face the future without fear, when times are evil and despite his awareness of his own sin. Then he compares this with the arrogant self-confidence of those who have achieved prosperity and status in this world; pointing out that they cannot even save their own lives and it all comes to nothing. He ends with these words:

They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion. But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah. Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dies he shall carry nothing away. His glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul– and men praise you when you do well for yourself– he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light. A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish. (Psa 49:14-20)

Sheol

‘Sheol’ is the Hebrew word for ‘the place of the Dead;’ it is also sometimes referred to in the Old Testament as ‘the pit’ (Ezekiel 31:16). In English, it is often translated metaphorically as ‘the grave;’ though when a physical burial site is being referred to, the Hebrew uses a different word, typically ‘sepulchre.’ Sheol roughly corresponds to the Greek word, ‘Hades;’ and is rendered as such in the New Testament and the Septuagint Old Testament. It is also rendered as either ‘Sheol’ or ‘Hades’ in most modern English translations.

Ezekiel 32:18-32 paints a picture of Sheol as like a giant pit where the dead from various nations lie buried in groups; some with more signs of honour than others: but nonetheless dead. Some took encouragement from the fact that this vision of Ezekiel has nothing to say about Israel and all those mentioned are uncircumcised. But others, conscious of their own sinfulness, and seeing no clear prospect of eventual resurrection still saw death as the end and focussed their hopes on enjoying as much of God’s blessing as possible during this life. Even King Hezekiah (one of Judah’s most godly kings) expected to end up in Sheol, with no prospect of future life, when he died:

I said, “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the residue of my years.” I said, “I won’t see Yah, Yah in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world. My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up, like a weaver, my life. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me. … For Sheol can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth. (Isa 38:10-12,18)

Gehenna

‘Gehenna’ is a Greek contraction of the Hebrew name, ‘the ravine of the son of Hinnom.’ This ravine, just outside Jerusalem, was a place of ill repute. When the Jewish people fell away from God, they built a ‘high place’ (a sacrificial site) there; where children were ‘passed through the fire’ (i.e. sacrificed) to the heathen God, Molech. The prophet Jeremiah pronounced the following words against it:

They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to bury. The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away. (Jer 7:31-33)

Jeremiah 19:1-15 makes an even more emphatic pronouncement concerning this place; emphasising that it will be filled with the corpses of those who have forsaken God; and that even Jerusalem would be made like it because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.

The Second Temple Period

During the years between the return from exile in Babylon and the birth of Jesus there was considerable doctrinal disagreement amongst the Jews. The intellectual Sadducean party rejected the idea of angels, spirits, life after death and final judgement as mere superstition; whereas the Pharisees insisted on their reality. However, interpretations as to the exact meanings of scriptures dealing with the subject were speculative, depending on the interpretations of individual rabbis – and quite varied. But by the time of Jesus ‘Sheol’ was generally understood to mean the place of the dead; though it appears that the Pharisees had come to the conclusion that righteous Jews would be spared its unpleasantness and instead be welcomed into the company of the patriarchs to await their eventual resurrection during the Messianic age. This was a condition sometimes referred to as ‘the Bosom of Abraham.’

By the first century BC Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, had become the everyday language of the Jewish people; and it was common practice to accompany public reading of the Hebrew scriptures with a verse-by-verse explanatory paraphrase in Aramaic, known as a Targum. Initially, these were recited from memory: but by the mid-first century AD they were being committed to writing.

The Targums reveal that, by the time of Jesus, ‘Gehenna’ had become a byword for the place where God exacted punishment on wrongdoers – especially the unbelieving Gentiles: but also Jews. However, it was thought that there must be a limit on the duration of such punishment and rabbinic traditions that developed during this period set a maximum limit of 12 months. It was believed that after this a person could be eligible for eventual resurrection or destruction; the latter being described as ‘the Second Death.’ In many ways, therefore, the rabbinic traditions concerning Gehenna were more akin to the Catholic concept of Purgatory than to that which we call Hell.

So when Jesus began his ministry the following concepts were already established in Jewish thought, even though their true nature continued to be a matter of debate:

• Sheol – The Place of the Dead.
• Abraham’s Bosom – a place where righteous Jews could await their eventual resurrection.
• Gehenna – a place of Divine retribution, to be followed either by eventual resurrection, or
• The Second Death – destruction or a state of permanent death.