Sermon Tone Analysis
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H - E - Double Toothpicks
What is this place of Hell that seems to creep up in scripture.
Some like the thought of Hell, where offenders get what’s coming to them.
Some are very disturbed by the notion of Hell.
What the heck do we do about Hell?
It is a topic of great debate among some Christian circles.
Annihilationism
Eternal Torment
Some will use the story we are going to read as a way to make some arguments about Hell.
I think the story is trying to convey something deeper.
Preliminary Definitions:
O.T. - Sheol: The underworld where the dead (good and bad) go to die
O.T. - Mavet: Death, can be a synonym for Sheol
O.T. - Abaddon: Destruction, place of the destroyed underworld, instability, chaos
O.T. - Bor: Pit, like a physical pit, but is the poetic underworld
O.T. - Shachat: Hole, like a physical hole, but also the underworld
O.T. - Rephaim: Ghosts, shades, demons of the underworld
O.T. - Hoshek: Darkness, chaos, hiding place of darkness
O.T. - Tehom: The deep dark waters of chaos
O.T. - Tsalmavet: Shadow Death, thick darkness, utter darkness
N.T. - Hades: The Underworld, where you go when you die, sometimes this is personified like a god
N.T. - Gehenna: Valley of Hinnom, Hell, fiery punishment for the wicked dead
N.T. - Abyss: Bottomless pit, the Underworld where even demons dread to go
N.T. - Tartarus: Prison in the Underworld, place where fallen angels are punished
N.T. - Skotos: Darkness, can be literal, but can be darkness of death
N.T. - Zophos: Darkness or gloom, the deepest, blackest darkness
N.T. - Paradeisos: Paradise, where the blessed or righteous dead go after death
I’ve shown you all these because I want you to get a sense of what the ancient person had in their mind.
When you hear Hell, or others hear Hell, we have a single image in our mind that is likely informed by Dante’s inferno, or Michaelangelo’s art.
That is not necessarily correct...
Ancient people have a sophisticated view of what happened after death, and you can see they thought about it.
They considered different beings (unseen and seen) when thinking about death.
They use darkness because this is the world they live.
They don’t have street lights like we do.
Half of their life would be spent in darkness.
It was dangerous, unknown, shady, so to speak.
And for the Hebrew, the dark waters (tehom) is what God’s wind or spirit was hovering, it stands in opposition to God’s good creation.
Is is this deep that God converts to good.
Second thing to keep in mind...
Parable: A made up story to teach a truth
Jesus is using a parable to teach something.
Immediately, we need to keep that in mind so as to not draw unnecessary conclusions or take the text too far.
READ ALL, then return to There was once a rich man...
Rich man: Remember last week, the rich man and the dishonest steward.
These are paired together to tell us the Rich Man is not God.
He is dressed in purple and fine linen (Royalty, like a king of this world)
He has enough food that scraps fall from the table.
He has a compound for a home, large enough to have a gate
The rich man does not let anyone past his gate
He is NOT NAMED, Jesus affords this man no honor
He knows the poor man is at his gate and does nothing
Poor Man: Last week was the steward, and he was too proud to beg and did not want to do laborious work.
He is lame, crippled, thus the sores where he likely lay in his own filth
He digs through the garbage (scraps) for food to survive
He has no home or way to work
He is NAMED, Jesus gives the poor man honor (Lazarus)
He is seen by the rich man
Jesus wants us to notice how rich man is treating the poor man.
That is key.
Is the rich man storing up treasure in heaven?
No.
He is consuming his treasure now.
***** NEXT SLIDE *****
They both die, notice this tiny detail and the mode of transport:
Poor man: He is not buried.
Rather, he is carried by the angels, messengers are sent to retrieve him.
He ends up in Abraham’s bosom, or in his lap like one of his children.
(Important!)
Rich man: He is buried.
And ends up where?
Under the earth.
And he ends up in Hades (God of the underworld).
He is tormented in Hades.
Now, Hades is a Greek and Roman God.
Hades (/ˈheɪdiːz/; Greek: ᾍδης, translit.
Háidēs; Ἅιδης, Háidēs), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous.[1]
Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father.[2]
He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos.
Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, available to all three concurrently.
In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, standing to his side.
Is Jesus saying that Hades is a real place?
Let’s read on first...
********* NEXT SLIDE **********
Whoa!
The Rich man is Jewish!
He identifies Abraham as his father!
If you don’t know who Abraham is, then start reading at Genesis 12.
What is a Jewish child of Abraham doing in the GREEK, ROMAN place of the dead?
Could this be why Jesus uses the term Hades instead of the more common Sheol?
I might be making too much of this, but I do believe it is important.
The thought of a Jewish person being imprisoned by a Roman God would be unbearable for the Pharisee’s and religious leaders, but he is slighting them by saying...
YOU SERVE THE KINGDOM AND GODS OF ROME SO YOU WILL BE WITH THEM WHEN YOU DIE.
And that should be a big warning to all Americans who call themselves Christian.
Notice what the Rich Man requests:
Refreshment for his tongue.
James will say our tongues are lit on fire by Hell (Gehenna) (READ James 2 and you will see what I mean)
He is in agony, just like Lazarus who sat in his filth and sores
HE DOES NOT REQUEST RELOCATION…(Important)
He wants his place of existence to be made better, make my hell tolerable.
******* NEXT SLIDE *********
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