Oh… Hell!

Se[tember 29, 2025

So do not be afraid… What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. — Matthew 10:26–28, Berean Standard Bible (BSB).

Let me expound on this verse: “Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

I think it is very important…

Now, the words translated here as destroy & hell, have great significance, both of which need clarification that when understood, can give all of us a clearer and deeper understanding about our lives both here and now as well as after our deaths.

The following research items will help me explain:

HELPS Word-studies

destroy — 622 apóllymi (from 575 /apó, “away from,” which intensifies ollymi, “to destroy” — properly — fully destroy, cutting off entirely

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

perish — From apo and the base of olethros;,to destroy fully (reflexively, to perish, or lose), literally or figuratively…

hell — ge-henna (or Ge-Hinnom), a valley SE of Jerusalem…

Basically, this “hell” was an actual Garbage Dump used by the Sanitation Workers of the City of Jerusalem for burning trash and refuse. It would be continuously smoldering… probably smelling pretty awful, too.

In the Old Testament, hell was called “sheol” and was simply where the “soul,” the “inner person,” that is where people would go in their life after their death regardless of their moral standing with God.

In the New Testament the understanding evolved — just like our understanding from Jesus expanding our understanding that, for example, hating someone was the very same as murdering them.

So, it was revealed, sheol has two significantly different realms: the flourishing Abraham’s Bosom and the searing, waterless desert, dull, boring, and wearisome place where a person’s soul can see Abraham’s Bosom but can have no interaction with and no benefit from the people “up there.”

Please don’t ask me to explain exactly where each place is. I can only guess that they are “out there” or “up there” or “down there” or “somewhere”in the eternal realm of God, commonly called Heaven…

…Never been to either yet… and so I just dunno…

In Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus in which He explained the necessity of being born again, even to begin to be able to see Heaven, He also explained, No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man. — John 3:12. NIV.

By the by, that means that nobody else has either — no matter what they honestly believe.

All that aside, I see these destinations as only the first stage of God’s Judgment.

Not unlike Humanity’s civil Courts of Law, there is that initial stage — perhaps resulting in a little time in the pokey “to cool one’s jets”, or perhaps a similar intermittent stage before moving one’s case to the Supreme Court. As far as God’s processes in this, two stages of Judgment are the only two I’ve read about in the Bible.

(Anyways, as for me, I wouldn’t bet my eternal life — nor your’s — on there being any more than just one!)

Notwithstanding, the Bible reveals that all unrighteousness is sin.

Sin severs our relationship with God.

There will be a final Judgment where each person must give their account for their actions while living.

… And that is that… Sorry… No Exceptions.

Yet, there is also a process like we have in this country: the Pardon. A Pardon from God requires us to recognize and to turn from our hurtful and harmful ways, turning to God’s beneficial and healthy ways and also to prove it by our actions.

(Take note: Those requirements have to be accomplished on this side of the grave — not somehow on our way to the nether world.)

Still, a caution is necessary here, and you need to read the parable Jesus used to explain it in Matthew 25:14–30.

It’s just a half minute read which will be worth your time… comparing it to your eternity that is.

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