Teachings
The roots of the Bible
The hereafter…
Yaakov, Béla Orbán
Hell and Paradise
The essential reality of the contemporary life is, under all its aspects, the realization of the hell here on the earth.
We have to face this evidence and admit that the situation is really very serious.
Our sincerity comes from the critical situation of our time. The time has come to stop defending ourselves; churches came to light in their impotence to change the current of the History.
We have no other way out, only Yeshua HaMashiach…
It is only to Him who is able to show us and to teach us the reality of the fight going on between the paradise and the hell, their characteristics as well as the only solution to the problem …
What are thus these two kingdoms, these two powers?
Do we know it and are we aware of it when we speak about it?
Hell, according to the Jewish thinking:
Referring to the Bible, Jewish wise men talked about a World to Come.
Although Talmud declares firmly that:
There is no hell in the World to Come:
"en gehinom baolam haba."
That means that the souls of sinners are disintegrated and as punishment they disappear after their death.
According to the Bible the following things are waiting for them:
sahat - perdition
avadon - disappearance
calmavet – death’s shadow
duma – dead and dumb world
The Hebrew uses these two words to define hell in the Bible:
- Seol: The root of this word: to ask (shin-alef-lamed)
An uncertain – unknown place…
-Gehinos, or Dyehenna
The valley of the son of Hinom.
This was the place where the first-born children were burned in sacrifice according to the pagan ritual.
This was so awful that the Jewish community used to call this place the Gate of Hell.
Here, Hell is synonymous of awful, dreadful.
It was the Christianity that made of this place a burning place with purifying flames.
The expression sheol is translated many times as "world of darkness" or "kingdom of death". This expression appears mostly in the Old Testament.
It is this place where Yeshua came down and where He proposed the Law and Grace to all the souls which were not able to be present during the disclosure of the Laws, those who lived before the Revelation and who were not able to know God. It is from here that He tore souls away from death and revived a lot of them.
The word dyehenna is exclusively used in the New Testament and stands for the last dead, the "(burning) lake of fire (and brimstone)" the final and total disintegration.
The modern Hebrew uses the term tofet to indicate the hell and which also means stake. It is probably this way that they reflect the definition and the contents of the word Dyehenna.
Does Hell exist then?
After the physical death, the sinner’s soul disappears:
The rest is just superstition.
Paradise
Hebrew uses the word Shamayim which simply means: sky or skies.
Although, it is not simply a matter of the beautiful blue sky that we can see above our heads.
We yet meet this expression right from the first sentences of the Bible when God divided the sky from the earth. In other words, He divided paradise from earth which is no other than the separation of the physical from the spiritual.
Jews know very well that God is Spirit and when they use the word Shamayim, they think about the place where God lives, they think to His presence.
When we find in the New Testament the expressions "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven", the Hebrew uses the words "Malckut hashamayim".
When John (the Baptist), together with Yeshua drew mainly the attention of people on the repentance because the Kingdom of Heaven is near, they talked about this Kingdom which the Eternal wanted to realize in the life of each one by means of His Spirit.
Many parables talk about the Kingdom of Heavens. We can really understand these parables only if we are able to define what they are talking about.
Translated from hungarian by Richard (Zeev Shlomo)
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