Christians: what is the difference between hell and lakes of fire?

Answer 1

Same thing.

Lets see what God says:
False religionists have hatched the "no-hell" plot to gain adherence to their movements. Because multitudes--even 70 percent of the preachers-no longer believe or like to even consider that such a place exists, a new group can grow quickly if they, discount the claims of the Holy Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ by preaching pleasing platitudes which cater to rebellious minds. But Romans 3:4 says, Let God be true, but every man a liar. I don't care if every human being or preacher says, "I do not believe it." When I can find it 162 times in my New Testament, I will believe it! It is the Word-we must believe it!

A popular trend today is to take the Hebrew words sheol and the Greek words hades and gehenna and state that they all mean the grave, though they are translated "hell" in the Word of God in the majority of instances. Let's take the Old Testament Hebrew word sheol. Why would God have to use this word to picture a grave when the Hebrew word queber logically depicts and portrays it? Consider the following five points in the Old Testament:

1. The body never goes to sheol but goes to queber 37 times. Why? Because queber is the grave for bodies and sheol is the place for departed spirits.
2. Sheol is never on the face of the earth but queber is located there 32 times. Why? Because graves are on the earth. Sheol, the place for departed spirits, is in some other realm of God's creation.
3. Man never puts another man into sheol but he does put a man into a queber 33 times. Why? Because man has the power to put other men into graves but does not have the power to put souls into sheol.
4. Man never digs or makes a sheol but he makes and digs a queber six times. Why? Because man has the power to make a grave but he does not have the power to make a sheol for departed spirits.
5. Man never speaks of a man as touching sheol, but he touches a queber five times. Why? Because, again, it is a grave on the earth and he has the power to touch it. But he has no power to do anything about sheol, the place for departed spirits.
To look at all the Old Testament instances involving sheol would take months of study. Besides, Christ has brought to light, life, and immortality-that which has to do with a never-dying soul-through the gospel or the New Testament (see 2 Timothy 1:10). Therefore, let's study hades and gehenna and see if they mean the grave or the place of eternal suffering.

You may ask, "Why did the Lord Jesus use two words-hades and gehenna? Are there two places?" Yes. Do you wish to know why?

Let me illustrate it this way: All of us know the difference between a local jail and a penitentiary. If a man is taken in a crime, he is not put into the penitentiary until he has had a trial. When he has had his trial and is found guilty, he is transferred to the penitentiary. Get this next statement, for it is so important to a direct understanding of the Bible subject of hell. When Jesus uses the word hades, He is referring to the local jail, the place where the sinner is held until the judgment morning. Then, at Judgment Day, all sinners come out of the local jail (hades), appear before the Judge, are found guilty, and then transferred to gehenna, the final penitentiary for souls.

Let me also add that the term gehenna is synonymous with the Lake of Fire. Revelation 20:13, 14: The sea gave up the dead which were in it: and death and [hades-that is the Greek word for hell] delivered up the dead ...And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire [gehenna]. This is the second death. l repeat that hades is the local jail and, gehenna, the final penitentiary. Any sinner who dies, even at this hour, does not go to gehenna, but to hades, where the rich man is located (see Luke 16:23). At Judgment Day, he comes out of hades, meets Christ at the trial, and then is transferred to the final penitentiary of lost souls--gehenna.

Let's consider eleven instances Christ uses in the New Testament to depict and describe hades--the temporary local jail.

Matthew 11:23: And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. That is the Greek word hades, where the rich man of Luke 16:23 is located.

Matthew 16:18: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock l will build my church; and the gates of hell [hades] shall not prevail against it.

Luke 10:15: And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell [hades].

Luke 16:22, 23: The rich man also died, and was buried: And in hell [hades] he lifted his eyes, being in torments.

Acts 2:27: Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [hades].

Acts 2:31: His soul was not left in hell [hades].

1 Corinthians 15:55: O death [hades], where is thy victory. Revelation 1:18: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [hades] and of death.

Revelation 6:8: Death and Hell [hades] followed with him.

Revelation 20:13, 14, Death and hell [hades] delivered up the dead which were in them ...And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire.

Plain isn't it? After sinners were judged, death and hades were cast into the final penitentiary-gehenna--synonymous with the Lake of Fire.

Gehenna differs from hades in that gehenna is a place where there are degrees of suffering. After one is judged, after he has been examined as to how much light he experienced, how often he heard the gospel, and rejected it, he is assigned to degrees of punishment in the final penitentiary. Romans 2:5 proves this statement, After thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up [stores up, saves up] unto thyself wrath... [administered in gehenna, the penitentiary].

Gehenna is used by Christ 12 times:

Matthew 5:22: Whosoever shall say Thou, fool, shall be in danger of hell [gehenna] fire. Let us put the cultists substitute there--grave--for they say hell is the grave. Jesus would then be saying, "Sinners shall be in danger of grave fire." That must be strange fire in the grave-I have never heard of it, have you! So Jesus must not be talking about a grave.

Matthew 5:29, 30: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell [gehenna]. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it, from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell [gehenna].

Matthew 10:28: And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather, fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [gehenna].

Matthew 18:9: And if thine eye offend then, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better, for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire [gehenna].

Matthew 23:15: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte [convert], and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell [gehenna] than yourselves.

Matthew 23:33: Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell [gehenna]?

In Mark 9:43-47, Jesus says, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy, foot offend thee, cut it of: it is better for thee to enter half into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell [gehenna], into the fire, that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eves to be cast into hell [gehenna] fire.

Every time Jesus mentions this place, gehenna, He always says it is the place where the worm dieth not and the fire is never quenched (see Mark 9:44, 40, 48). Do not let some cultist tell you this is the grave when the Word of God makes it explicitly clear that this is a place where there is agony, suffering, burning, where the memory dies not, and where the fires never cease.

Luke 12:5: I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell [gehenna]; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Then in James 3:6, He says, The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell [gehenna].

We discover there are eleven passages concerning hades, and twelve passages concerning gehenna. Hades is the local jail where the sinner awaits the judgment morning. At that time he comes out, is judged, and then is transferred to gehenna. Do not let any false religionist, any cultist, tell you that is merely a grave. Hear me, my friend. When Jesus stood on this earth, He pointed to the Valley of Hinnom. In the Old Testament it was a place of sacrifice to pagan gods. In the New Testament it became the garbage dump. The fire burned 24 hours a day to get rid of all the refuse, and Jesus said that hell was going to be like the fires at the Valley of Hinnom.

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Answer 2

Two different places. People that die without Christ go to hell, later on they will be judged by Christ at the Great White Throne judgment and they will go to the lake of fire.

Rev 20:11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Answer 3

Hell and punishment of the like has many descriptions. The lake of fire is a graphic description of hell given in the Book of Revelation. Jesus describes being outside the Kingdom of Heaven as being dark and a place of weeping.

I believe hell will consist of different areas or levels measuring in severity in accordance with how evil the person was. The punishment will fit the crimes.

Answer 4

In Revelation, both hell and death are cast into the lake of fire. So clearly the lake of fire is not hell since it makes no sense to cast hell into itself.

Nor is death an object that can be cast into a place, so the lake of fire must be symbolic. For annihilates utterly. The lake of fire is symbolism for the end of death and the grave (aka hell).

Answer 5

Hell is outside the walls of heaven. On the foundation of heaven!

The Lake of fire (only one) is formed on earth, after the 1000 years of Christs rule.
The Judgment of God, those found wanting are thrown into the Lake and die, fade to black.

Answer 6

Hell is a place that you go to if you bad in your after life and the lake of fire is inside of hell it's like lava i think

Answer 7

Hell - common grave of mankind
Lake of Fire - was Gehenna - and symbolized the second death

Of what, then, is the “lake of fire” a symbol? The Bible says that it is, or that it means or symbolizes, the “second death.” (Rev. 20:14) This cannot mean that everything that goes into it dies a second time, for “death and Hades” have not died or gone out of existence in the past. The expression “second death” distinguishes this death, which is permanent and everlasting and from which there is no resurrection, from the death brought upon the human race by Adam. Adamic death is one “kind” of death, a death that all men inherit through no personal fault of their own. The “second death” is another “kind” of death. Individuals that go into the “second death” merit it because of their own deliberate choice of sin and enmity toward God. This is evident by the action of those the Bible speaks of as being sentenced to the “second death.”

Answer 8

Lakes of fire is a vaction resort in hell.

Answer 9

lakes of fire is about 20 minutes west of hell.

Answer 10

Hell will be thrown into the lake of fire,with the devil and his angels and all who didn`t believe.That will be the second death.It says that you will burn for ever.Meaning you will die .
Hell is were the lost go till judgement.

Answer 11

According to THE BIBLE, lake of fire is the place where sinners and unbelievers go. Hell of fire, there's no such word in THE BIBLE, as you said,THE BIBLE no such thing.