Erasing Hell by Francis Chan - Debunked!
(Part 1)

Here in PART 1 of this 3-part series of articles debunking Francis Chan's book on hell, I will debunk the main point Chan attempts to prove: his claim that when Jesus talked about “Gehenna” He was referring to hell.

In the Introduction to this 3-part series I explained that Chan's book should be called “Affirming Hell” – in it he attempts to defend the “traditional” view of hell held by many Christians. In the book Chan does what most Bible teachers who dare to talk about hell do: he simply says, “The Bible talks about hell” and then proceeds to completely ignore the multiple Scriptures that blatantly contradict the typical modern Christian belief in hell (see my book Hell Is A Mistranslation for a list of these).

If you want to give yourself some good practice "testing everything and holding on to what is good" as 1 Thessalonians 5:21 commands, I suggest you read Chan's book on hell, and then read mine. There is nothing wrong with carefully analyzing two different viewpoints, in fact the Bible commands you to do this with every teaching you hear.

Alright, now I will debunk the most important point Francis Chan attempts to make in his book on hell – his claim that Jesus was referring to hell when He talked about “Gehenna”.

Francis Chan Ignores the Fact That When Jesus Talked About “Gehenna” He Quoted Isaiah 66:23-24…Which Proves Gehenna Is A Physical Place

Any person who wants to cling to the “traditional” view of hell must attempt to show that when Jesus referred to “Gehenna” He was symbolically talking about hell. This is because the word “hell” is not actually found anywhere in the Bible; the Hebrew “sheol” (un-perceived) does not mean “hell”, nor does the Greek “Gehenna”, “hades” (un-perceived, also used to translate “sheol” from Hebrew into Greek in the New Testament), or “tartarusing” (a verb that means “waiting in a dark place” and refers only to fallen angels, not humans). Every time you see the word “hell” in your English Bible, you must look at the underlying Greek or Hebrew word to see what it really is; the word “hell” is only inserted in English due to tradition.

So in order to claim that the Bible talks about hell, the centerpiece of your argument must be that Jesus talked about hell. After all, the Bible contains remarkably little that could be construed as a warning about “hell” (all of which disappears, of course, when you translate key words accurately and interpret a few key passages carefully).

For example, Paul doesn’t mention anything that could be remotely considered a reference to “hell”, not even once in all his Biblical writings – and he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament! (Keep in mind that this statement is based on accurate translation of Greek words; the word "hell" is not found anywhere in the Greek or Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible.) Not once does the apostle Paul mention “hell”, and if Jesus doesn’t mention it, the idea of hell quickly falls apart upon close examination.

I heard a preacher say recently that the Bible and Jesus talk far more about money than about hell – a true statement even if you think the Bible talks about hell in every place where that could possibly be construed through mistranslation or misinterpretation. Funny...Wouldn’t you think that the Bible would be chock full of warnings about hell if hell was actually a real place where the vast majority of humanity is in danger of burning and screaming in untold agony without end?

By the way, the "traditional" (common modern) view of hell was not the view of the original Christians - see a book called Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years: With Authorities and Extracts by John Wesley Hanson.

So, because the Bible talks far less about (supposed) eternal punishment than one would think if that were actually the destiny of most of mankind, the "hell preachers" must look for something to try to heighten the terror and magnify the supposed importance of the "hell doctrine" in Scripture. Jesus' words about Gehenna fit the bill perfectly...

So the centerpiece of any claim that the Bible warns us about hell must be the words of Jesus supposedly warning us about hell. If you want to cling to the “traditional” view of hell you must try to prove this point, because blatant mistranslations aside, the Bible offers precious little else that could be remotely construed as referring to hell. ("Hell" is always a mistranslation, "eternal/everlasting/forever" is always a mistranslation, the lake of fire can be easily proven to be a physical fire that causes physical death to physical human bodies – the only kind of death there is in Scripture, where a person becomes unconscious according to Ecc. 9:5 and many other plain statements in the Bible – and the setting of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is fictional and was lifted directly out of the Pharisees’ pagan Talmud in order to mock the pagan idea of conscious death, not teach it.)

Now, in order to claim that “Jesus talked about hell”, you must try to prove that He used the word “Gehenna” to symbolically refer to hell. Clinging to the idea that “hell is real” requires believing that Jesus meant “hell” when He said “Gehenna”. The problem is, Gehenna does not mean “hell”; it is the name of a physical location in Jerusalem. Gehenna is only referred to in Scripture as a physical place; the Old Testament refers to Gehenna multiple times as a physical valley in Jerusalem – never as a some kind of nebulous “spirit place”.

So if Jesus was using the name of this physical place in Jerusalem (with which His Israelite audience would have been very familiar, it would be like mentioning Brooklyn when talking to a New Yorker) to symbolically refer to hell, He would have to have been starting a new precedent concerning what “Gehenna” means when used in Scripture. So, do we have any evidence in Scripture that Jesus was using the word “Gehenna” symbolically rather than to refer to the physical Valley of Gehenna (or the Valley of Gehinnom or the Valley of the sons of Gehinnom)?

No. We have the opposite. We have absolute proof that Jesus was referring to the same physical location in Jerusalem talked about in the Old Testament when He talked about Gehenna. This proof is the fact that He quoted Isaiah 66:23-24 when referring to Gehenna. These two verses in Isaiah are a clear prophecy about “all flesh” (obviously all physical humanity) watching the “corpses” of dead men burning when Jesus begins to reign over the earth.

Before I go on to explain more about the incredible importance of the fact that Jesus quoted Isaiah 66:23-24 when talking about Gehenna (a fact which Chan completely ignores), I should mention that the fire in Gehenna that Jesus talked about is not “eternal”. That’s a blatant and horrible mistranslation of the Greek word “eonian”, which means "pertaining to the eon/age" (referring to the millennium age, the 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth). Being thrown in the physical fire in the valley of Gehenna during Jesus’ earthly 1,000-year reign will be the equivalent of the electric chair for very evil people at that time.

The "worms that don't die" referred to in Isaiah 66:23-24 are typical Isaiah-the-prophet flowery language for fly larva around dead bodies. And the fire doesn't burn forever, it is simply "not quenched"; the Greek word used in the New Testament passage by Jesus is not "unquenchable", it is "unquenched", meaning nobody puts it out on purpose but rather lets it burn itself out (a good idea for rotting dead bodies).

The passage Jesus was quoting from Isaiah when He talked about Gehenna clearly declares that "all flesh" (obviously, all physical humans on earth at that time during the millennium) "will see" the burning "corpses". When you put it Isaiah 66:23-24 together with Jesus’ statements about Gehenna and view it all as physical events occurring on this physical earth during Jesus’ coming earthly reign, it makes perfect sense. But to try to twist these Scriptures into somehow referring to a nebulous spirit place requires blatant mistranslation and invention of ideas that are not found anywhere else in Scripture. (Again, see my book and other articles on this site to learn that the lake of fire is also a physical fire as can be easily proven from Scripture, and Jesus took the fictional setting of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man from the Pharisees’ pagan Talmud in order to mock their pagan ideas of conscious death, not teach them, while making a point about His coming rule on earth.)

Bottom line, Isaiah 66:23-24 and the fact that Jesus quoted it when referring to Gehenna fire prove conclusively that both Jesus and Isaiah were talking about events that will happen on earth at the beginning of the millennium reign of Christ.

To fully understand why Jesus would warn Israelites and Pharisees living 2,000 years ago about something that has still not happened yet, you can read my Kingdom of God Bible Study article about the Kingdom Time-Gap or my book Hell Is A Mistranslation. But let me explain a little bit about it here, because it is an important subject Francis Chan does not understand, and his ignorance about what I call “The Kingdom Time-Gap” allows him to make a big mistake in interpreting some of Jesus’ statements about Gehenna.

Francis Chan Does Not Realize Why Jesus Was Warning Israelites Living 2,000 Years Ago About A Physical Fire That Would Occur at the Beginning of Christ’s Earthly Reign

Chan, like most modern preachers, does not understand that Jesus’ message to the nation of Israel 2,000 years ago was very different than the apostle Paul’s later message to the whole world. Modern Christianity confuses the two messages and treats them as one and the same, causing massive confusion in the body of Christ on several different subjects. One of these areas is the correct interpretation of Jesus’ teachings about Gehenna fire.

In Erasing Hell Chan claims that several of Jesus’ statements about Gehenna would “sound funny” or would not make sense if the meaning of “a physical valley” is inserted in place of “Gehenna”. If you read this section of Chan’s book, be sure to look at the Scriptures he quotes carefully in the Greek and Hebrew, because some the English translations Chan chooses to quote do sound funny with the phrase “a physical valley” inserted only because of the way the English is phrased. In the Greek this “funny-sounding” quality does not exist. But Chan’s main argument is not that some of these statements sound funny grammatically in English, but rather that it seems to make no sense (to him) that Jesus would warn His audience about a fire in a physical valley.

On the contrary, when you understand what I am about to explain to you, Jesus’ statements about Gehenna as a physical valley make perfect sense. The only reason thinking of Gehenna as a physical valley “sounds funny” or seems not to make sense to a modern Christian is because modern Christians don’t realize that Jesus’ primary message to Israel was for the purpose of giving them a chance to see His kingdom come to earth (what we now call “the millennium”) in that generation, and so to them (Jesus’ Israelite audience), there was a very real chance that within their lifetimes they might see Jesus ruling from Jerusalem and killing “bad guys” (corrupt leaders) and throwing their corpses in the fire in the valley of Gehenna.

Let me show you this in Scripture.

When Jesus and His disciples talked about “the kingdom of God” they were not talking about hanging out in heaven. They were talking about what we now call “the millennium” – the time when Jesus will reign over the earth (the same earth we walk on today) for 1,000 years. If you don’t believe this just read Acts 1:6-7 and all the other times when Jesus’ disciples were arguing about who would get the most authority when reigning over the earth with Jesus. They were expecting Jesus to turn into Rambo Messiah and physically defeat the Romans by force and take over the earth. They did not understand (as we do today) that in God’s grand plan this was not to occur for more than 2,000 years afterwards (Rev. 19-20) – not because they were stupid, but because Jesus purposefully did not explain it to them (Acts 1:6-7).

To this day most Jews do not accept that Jesus was the Messiah because He did not do the one key thing they were expecting Him to do (take over the earth by force). They do not understand that God has a bigger plan (the eventual education of all mankind) than just ruling over the earth for a while with Israel (and Christians). The Old Testament prophetic promises that Israel will rule over the earth with the Messiah will be fulfilled, but Jesus’ Israelite audience and even His own disciples did not realize the timing of this prophetic fulfillment in God’s grand plan because Jesus purposefully never explained it to them.

The point is that the term “the kingdom of God” in Scripture does not refer to hanging out in heaven. Careful study of Scripture reveals that “taking part in the kingdom of God” does not entail hanging out in heaven for a long time – rather, those of us who take part in the rapture will only be in heaven for a short time after the rapture before we return with Christ to reign over the earth with Him (Rev. 19-20). And even after Jesus’ 1,000 year reign, during the “New Jerusalem age” (as I call it, see Rev. 21-22), the city New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God to a new earth, rather than us going up to heaven. Our destiny is fellowship with God on earth!

So you have to realize that when Jesus preached to His Israelite audience about “the kingdom of God” He was talking about His future reign on earth, and His Israelite audience would have understood that perfectly. Even more importantly, Jesus constantly preached to the Israelites that He might reign on earth within that generation (2,000 years ago) if certain conditions were met. This key fact for understanding Jesus’ preaching and indeed all of what we call the “New Testament” is hidden from the minds of most modern Christians by a difficult translation issue with several of Jesus’ most important statements. Matthew 25:34 is just one of several statements in the gospels where Jesus made it clear to the Israelites He was preaching to that if they met certain conditions (if they behaved/repented and accepted Him as their Messiah), the kingdom of God (what we now call the millennium earthly reign of Christ) would come within that generation.

Unfortunately the conditional nature of Jesus’ statements does not show up in our English Bibles because it is difficult to translate from Greek. The Greek verb tense used in these statements made by Christ does not have a smooth equivalent in English, so the translators have a tough time translating it accurately and smoothly at the same time. So they choose smoothness at the expense of accuracy. (Admittedly it’s very clumsy to try to put a paragraph of Greek verb tense explanation in the middle of a passage.) The problem is, this makes it seem like Jesus is saying “the kingdom will surely come in this generation” when in reality He was saying “the kingdom will surely come in this generation IF certain conditions are met”. It's like me saying to my son, "I will surely take you out for ice cream IF you get straight A's on your report card."

Translating this Greek conditional verb tense accurately instantly solves the dilemma caused by Matthew 24:34 that has stumped Christians and delighted Bible-bashers for centuries. In our English Bibles Jesus seems to be saying in this verse that all sorts of crazy end time events would happen within one generation of His life on earth (2,000 years ago). These events obviously did not occur back then, not because Jesus is a liar, but because Israel did not meet the conditions that would allow God to bring the kingdom to earth at that time. The Greek conditional verb tense used to record what Jesus said makes this abundantly clear.

When we understand the conditional nature of these statements made by Christ (Matt. 24:34 and a few other statements that use the same Greek tense), many previously confusing issues in the Bible instantly become crystal clear. Suddenly we realize that Jesus’ preaching to Israel was for a very specific, narrow purpose – to give them a chance to behave well enough and recognize His Messiahship so that they could see the kingdom come to earth and reign with Him in fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies. Suddenly the true meaning of “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” becomes clear: “Israel, if you behave well enough in order to qualify yourselves to rule with Me, the kingdom will come in this generation.” Suddenly we see that Jesus kept a lot of what He knew and understood about God’s big overarching plan very close to His chest. (The closest He came to explaining to anyone during His earthly ministry what He later taught Paul about the main purpose for His death and God’s ultimate plan, was to Nicodemus in private at night in John 3. Modern Christians forget that John 3:16-17 was spoken in private and was not part of Jesus’ preaching to Israel.)

Jesus knew (but did not tell anyone, even His own disciples) that His “Israel, you should behave in order to earn a good spot in the possibly-soon-coming kingdom of God on earth where bad guys will be killed and their corpses thrown in a fire in Gehenna as prophesied in Isaiah 66:23-24)” message was doomed to failure. Paul tells us later in Romans 11, 13 etc. that God hardened Israel’s hearts so that their own behavior-based righteousness would fail, in order that the true meaning of Christ’s death (righteousness through Christ alone, not by works) could come to light and be preached to the whole world by Paul.

So we see that trying to combine Jesus’ and His twelve disciples’ works-based preaching to Israel (which was still under the Old Testament law of Moses) with Paul’s later faith-and-grace-based preaching causes unnecessary confusion. There is no need to flip back and forth between Jesus and Paul, playing “condemnation” ping-pong (“I need to behave well enough to earn it”… “no, I just need to put my faith in Christ’s work on the cross” etc.). Jesus’ and His twelve disciples’ “earn it” message does not apply to us anymore; rather, Paul’s “by grace through faith, not by works” message applies to us today. (Of course, we can still learn from many of Jesus’ great timeless teachings on wisdom and morality and apply them to ourselves; it’s just that His primary instruction to Israel, “Earn it through good behavior” was destined to fail in God’s grand plan and has now been replaced with a message for the whole world, “Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works”.)

These facts also give us great clarity concerning Jesus’ statements about Gehenna. When we combine what I just explained to you with the knowledge that Jesus was quoting Isaiah 66:23-24 when referring to Gehenna fire, we see that it make perfect sense for Jesus to repeatedly warn His Israelite audience about the fire where He would throw the corpses of “bad guys” when He began to reign over the earth. After all, He was repeatedly telling them that if the conditions were met He could begin to reign over the earth within their lifetimes!

We also have to keep in mind that Jesus’ Israelite audience knew the Old Testament Scriptures much better than modern Christians do. They understood the Old Testament’s clear teaching that death is unconscious (Ecc. 9:5, 10, Ps. 115:17, Ps. 146:4 etc) and that the Old Testament does not mention conscious death anywhere or in any way. They were not affected by centuries of Catholic/pagan-inherited ideas about “eternal punishment” like modern Christians are. Jesus’ Israelite audience 2,000 years ago would never have dreamed that Jesus was referring to anything but the valley in Jerusalem they were all familiar with when He talked about Gehenna.

For more vital information about the difference between Jesus’ message to Israel and Paul’s later message to the whole world, and how it clarifies several major issues of confusion in the average Christian’s mind, you can read my article The Kingdom Time-Gap or my book Hell Is A Mistranslation.

The Last Nail In the “Gehenna Is Hell” Coffin: The #1 Rule of Bible Interpretation

The last thing I’d like to point out about Chan’s claim that “Jesus was talking about hell when He referred to Gehenna fire” is that this claim requires breaking the #1 Rule of Bible Interpretation.

The #1 Rule of Bible Interpretation is just the #1 Rule of Communication. It is, simply put: “The listener must assume the communicator is speaking literally unless the communicator gives clear indication that he/she is speaking non-literally (symbolically, allegorically, or metaphorically).”

If we were to ever break this rule in everyday life, all communication would break down. In other words, if we gave ourselves permission to interpret anything that was said to us symbolically any time we want to, we would never be able to understand anything that was said to us because we would be giving ourselves permission to twist a communicator’s words at will.

For example, if I say to you, “Go get me some chocolate milk”, and you decide that I must have symbolically meant, “Go find me a dark-skinned woman” without me giving you any clear indication that I meant my statement symbolically, you are twisting my words and making me say something ridiculous that I did not mean at all.

It is just common sense to follow this rule when interpreting communication from God in His Word. If we give ourselves permission to make something that is said symbolic just because we want it to be, we are butchering God’s Word by breaking the simple and common sense rules of communication.

So how do we know when we are allowed to take a statement in Scripture symbolically, metaphorically or allegorically rather than literally? The same way we know we can do this in real life, everyday communication. There are two clear indicators that communicators use to let listeners know they do not want to be taken literally. If one or more of these indicators is present in a statement or in the context of the statement, it is safe to take the statement non-literally (at which point we must then try to discover the symbolic or allegorical meaning meant by the communicator).

These are the two indicators that a communicator does not mean a statement to be taken literally:

1) The communicator plainly states that they are not being literal. (For example, when we see in the Bible, “Jesus told a parable” or “Then I saw a sign in heaven”.)

2) The statement makes no sense, is very silly, or cannot possibly be true if taken literally. (For example, if I were to say to you, “That guy is a beast”. I said that the other day about a very strong NFL football player; obviously I didn’t mean it literally.)

Sadly, most Bible teachers are not even aware of the simple #1 Rule of Bible Interpretation I have just taught you, nor are they aware of how to apply it carefully when interpreting Scripture, so they give themselves free license to make Scriptural statements symbolic whenever they want. Needless to say this causes great confusion. Sadly, it seems that many Bible teachers (and consequently their listeners) think it is completely normal to take a statement in Scripture and interpret it symbolically, allegorically, or metaphorically without proving that the communicator has given us license to jump from literal interpretation to non-literal interpretation.

And sometimes Bible teachers unconsciously (because most of them don’t consciously understand the #1 Rule of Communication/Bible-Interpretation but they do understand it unconsciously and are unconsciously aware of how they use it in everyday life) apply the second “non-literal indicator” when they should not. They sometimes think this indicator is present when really it is not. They think a statement made in Scripture cannot possibly be literal, when if they studied more carefully or had additional information from Scripture in mind, they would see that the statement actually makes perfect sense when taken literally.

This is exactly what Francis Chan is doing when he claims that Jesus talking about Gehenna as a physical valley “sounds silly”. He claims that Jesus cannot be speaking about a physical valley because he cannot fathom why Jesus would warn Israelites 2,000 years ago about fire in a physical valley. Well, I just explained to you straight out of Scripture (Is. 66:22-23 and quoted by Jesus in the gospels when He talked about Gehenna) exactly why it made perfect sense for Jesus to warn His Israelite audience about the fire where He would throw the corpses of evil people when He begins His earthly reign.

Jesus referring to Gehenna as a physical valley in Jerusalem (from where He would/will reign over the earth and where He will throw the corpses of evil men He removes from power and influence through capital punishment according to Is. 66:23-24) makes perfect sense. It also lines up perfectly with every other reference to Gehenna in the Bible, which all refer to Gehenna as a physical location in Jerusalem. That eliminates “non-literal indicator #2”.

What about “non-literal indicator #1”? Well, Jesus gives no indication anywhere in His statements about Gehenna that He is not speaking literally about a literal physical location in Jerusalem called Gehenna with which His Israelite audience was very familiar. It would be like me preaching to a bunch of New Yorkers and referring to Brooklyn. Why would it even cross their minds that I was speaking metaphorically or symbolically when I said “Brooklyn”? It wouldn’t even cross their minds unless I made some type of clear statement to let them know that I didn’t mean it literally. And we find no such clear statement in the words of Jesus surrounding His statements about Gehenna.

Francis Chan claims that to assume Jesus meant Gehenna literally according to the plain meaning of the word used in the rest of Scripture is to make an error; that error, he says, is in taking the origin of a word as the meaning of the word. He is correct in that words can change meaning over time; however, we must have proof that the meaning of Gehenna changed from literal (as used in the entire Old Testament) to symbolic…and there is no such proof! We have no Scriptural or historical reason that would give us permission to take Jesus’ reference to Gehenna as anything but the same physical location referred to in the Old Testament. In fact we have absolute proof that we are not allowed to take Jesus’ reference to Gehenna as anything but a reference to a physical place: the fact that He quoted Isaiah 66:23-24 when He referred to Gehenna.

It is actually Chan who is breaking the universally-followed #1 Rule of Communication and the #1 Rule of Bible Interpretation by assuming Jesus meant Gehenna symbolically without any proof or Biblical indication whatsoever. He makes a weak attempt to show that Jesus’ audience would have thought Jesus was speaking symbolically about hell but succeeds only in proving that some people later on in history believed Jesus was talking about hell (which is true, due to the combination of paganism with Christianity that became Catholicism).

Chan does not have a leg to stand on in this regard; he has no proof whatsoever that Jesus was speaking non-literally when talking about Gehenna, and to cling to his weak thread of logic he must ignore the fact that Gehenna is only referred to as a physical place in Scripture and that Jesus quoted Isaiah 66:23-24 which clearly refers to the same events of which Jesus spoke as occurring in a physical location on earth.

Conclusion to PART 1

I have just proven to you Scripturally that Jesus was not referring to “hell” when He talked about Gehenna. Without this key argument, Francis Chan’s entire premise that “the Bible talks about hell” begins to crumble.

Click here to go to PART 2 where I will debunk Chan's claim that Revelation 14:9-11 (and other similar Scriptures) talk about eternal punishment.

Click here to go to PART 3 where I will debunk Chan's attempts to explain away the many Scriptures that clearly declare God's plan for universal reconciliation.

Of course, for a detailed explanation of God's ultimate plan for humanity revealed in the accurately translated Bible, you can read my book Hell Is A Mistranslation.

Please understand that when I mention my book I don’t mean it as a sales pitch; I mention it a lot because it is the only resource I know of that in a clear and concise manner explains God’s ultimate plan for humanity logically and in detail from Scripture, covering virtually every Bible verse and question about the subject and putting it all together into a clear picture where Scripture does not contradict itself at all (but rather perfectly explains itself) and where (what a surprise!) God makes perfect sense to both the head and the heart (philosophically as well as Scripturally and logically).

To get an overview of this subject, watch the video below:

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Erasing Hell by Francis Chan – Debunked! Part 1 of 3 Copyright 2011 Marc Speed

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