How come people say Jesus was exemplary person when he explicitly taught hellfire?

Answer 1

If hellfire exists, what would an exemplary person teach? (I ask this without sarcasm)...

Answer 2

I don't see how teaching hellfire would exclude him from being an exemplary person. Can you elaborate on that a little more?
Jesus didn't teach hellfire anyway. The only reference he makes to hellfire is when he was talking about Lazarus and the rich man. And that was a parable, used as an example of something. Jesus never said in the Bible that you will die and go to the burning fiery pit if you don't repent. He said you will be separated from God forever, you will cease to exist because God has the power to extinguish your soul. Read the Bible and see for yourself.

Answer 3

You might want to specifically reference what you mean by "hellfire"... Many things he said have been distorted and misunderstood by fearful minds over the last 2000 years by fearful and hateful minds. He taught only innocence, not guilt. And that is exemplary.

Answer 4

And...? Do you mean if He dared teach something that you happen to disagree with, then he could not have been an exemplary person?
If that is the case, I'm afraid I can't be of much help.

Answer 5

Hell is probably going to be a lot worse than fire, because our sensitivities will be so much more acute after resurrection to eternal life or damnation.

Just as "eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him," so is it hard for us to comprehend what Hell will really be like...but Jesus must have thought that burning up forever came closest to being accurate.

I wonder sometimes if Heaven and Hell are going to be exactly the same thing, only experienced by some people as Hell and by others as Heaven, depending on how responsive (and thus acclimated?) to God's love they've learned to become. (I've only read some of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, but I've heard some of his Science Fiction hints at that type of scenario---and I've heard others who have stumbled across that possibility for hell, also.)

I don't mean to sugarcoat the idea of Hell by suggesting this. But there are so many references in the Bible to God himself being a consuming fire...

P.S. Sara---Where did you go? Hmmm. I will miss your questions. God bless.

Answer 6

He didn't teach hellfire...end of story smart girl.

Answer 7

He taught the truth!
most just don't like to hear the truth!

Answer 8

If the house is on fire what kind of a person does not warn the inhabitants.

Answer 9

He is Truth. You either except His teachings as truth or reject them totally.

Answer 10

All throughout the world of professing Christianity, every Sunday morning preachers will scare the daylights or worse out of their parishioners with the threats of an ever-burning Hell fire that awaits unrepentant sinners.


Little children in Sunday school will hear what happens to bad boys and girls when the devil gets them in Hell.

We have all kinds of jokes about Hell, the devil and his demons. Some people invite others to go there.

Former President Harry S. Truman when asked why he gives people hell, said, “I don’t give ‘em hell, I tell ‘em the truth and they think its hell.”

There are all kinds of concepts of HELL. There’s no doubt about it, the idea, concept and doctrine of Hell is mighty effective.


Heaven, on the other hand, is a nebulous concept. Preachers talk of angels, harps, beatific visions, streets of gold, milk and honey and cloud nine. All of this seems tame, almost boring compared to say, thick steaks, vacations on the French Riviera, sports cars, jet planes and rock music.

On the other hand, the idea of HELL FIRE conjures up a frightful image. The idea of burning in a fire that never ceases’ burning is horrific beyond imagination. In my city of Southgate, Kentucky back in 1977, the posh super club, The Beverly Hills, where entertainer John Davidson was performing, caught fire and nearly 300 perished in that blaze. To this day the fire fighters, survivors, and rescue workers have nightmares from that fateful night nearly thirty years ago. So we clearly can see what a gifted speaker can do with the impending torture of eternal burning in the flames of hell fire to get our attention.

With such an important subject as hell, it is vital we understand what the Bible says about it, and more importantly what it doesn’t say, but merely comes from human thought and invention.

The common concept is that Hell is somewhere down below; and it is a place of torture and torment run by Satan and his demons. Dante depicted it as a place with bodies writhing in constant pain, on fire, but never burning up while Satan and his demons race around in boundless joy with pitchforks jabbing the hapless victims.


Roman catholic theologians have subdivided Hell into four compartments:

1. Hell itself: the final place of damnation.
2. Limbus Parvulorum: a place for the unbaptized who are stained with original sin and must undergo some sort of punishment.
3. Limbus Patrum: holding pen for those who died before Christ.
4. Purgatory: for the just, stained with venial or minor sins, owing debts of punishment before being allowed into heaven.

All of these sound rather impressive, except they are nowhere to be found in all of sacred scripture.


Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

The Bereans searched the scriptures daily whether these things are so. Paul told the Thessalonians to prove all things and to hold fast to that which is good.

If the popular doctrines of Hell, Limbo, Purgatory and the like are true as taught in the churches, they should be able to stand the test of the Bereans, the Thessalonians and us. Let’s see.

The King James translators have rendered the Hebrew word Sheol, and the Greek words Hades, Gehenna (or Geena) and Tartaroo as Hell. Is this really intellectual honesty? No, it is not! [Note: It is the same selective interpreting that is used with the words Nephesh and Psuche to establish the doctrine of the immortal soul. Another interesting study for another time].

Let’s take a brief look at the meaning of the words translated Hell:

Sheol: world of the dead, the grave, the pit, hell.
Hades: place of departed souls: i.e. the grave.
(Strong’s Concordance, 7585, 86)

Neither of these words have the slightest notion or connotation of a place of punishing or punishment. Sheol appears 65 times in the Old Testament. It is rendered the grave 31 times, the pit three times and hell 31 times.

A clear example is in Psalm 86:14. The word sheol is translated thusly. “For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.” However, the King James version of the same verse translates the word sheol as hell—interpreting and not translating.

Let’s go to the New Testament and see a similar application to Hades. Here we find this Word used eleven times and it is translated hell in all instances except in I Corinthians 15:55, which is the resurrection chapter. If Hades refers to a place of punishment, then how could these most uplifting scriptures of hope be recorded here as our victory over hell (the grave) through Jesus Christ? It would make no sense whatsoever. Let us read it together. “Where O death, is your victory? Where, O death (Hades), is your sting?”[NIV].The King James states, “…O grave (Hades), where is your victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55). There is no intellectual honesty whatsoever to attempt to apply the notion of Hades as a place of punishment or punishing when it and Sheol merely mean a pit, or grave. Before refrigeration, farmers stowed their potatoes in “hell” to preserve them.

However, does this mean there is no place of punishment? No it does not. There is such a place and we want no part of that.

The Greek word for that place of punishment is Gene, rendered Gehenna, which is transliterated from the Hebrew Gai Hinnom. It is a valley of Jesus’ day used figuratively as a name for the place of eternal punishment (Strong’s Concordance, 1067). Anciently this Valley of Hinnom was a place of fires where children were sacrificed to the pagan god Moloch. In Jesus’ day this valley was perpetually kept on fire for burning garbage, thus the association made with the fire of destruction of the judgment of God.

Geena or Gehenna occurs twelve times in the New Testament and is always rendered hell, and rightly so. Let us look at the example in Matthew 5:22, 29, “…But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell (gehenna)…It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell (gehenna).”

This is a horrible fate for the wicked and those that refuse to repent. But this is an eternal punishment, not eternal punishing. A merciful God will simply put the unrepentant sinner out of his or her misery as any of us would a rabid animal, not continue to let it suffer needlessly.

It is Satan’s fate to suffer eternally because spirit cannot die. That is why it is he who has perpetuated the lie of the immortality of the soul and an ever-burning hell and eternal punishment. That is his fate—not mankind’s.

The final use of the word hell is tartaroo, meaning to incarcerate in eternal torment—to cast down to hell (Strong’s Concordance, 5020). This word appears only once and it has nothing to do with fire. Spirit cannot burn and has only to do with Satan and his demons. As we said, it is Satan and his who will endure eternal punishment.

The victims of Gehenna fire are described in Malachi 4:1-3 as merely ashes left under our feet—that’s all you have left after a fire of any physical material—ashes, that’s all. The fallen angel’s fate is described in 2 Peter 2:4, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell (tartaroo), putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment.”

Satan and his demons will be tormented forever in tartaroo and the saints of God will judge them as we’re told in I Corinthians 6;3.

In review, Sheol, and Hades mean grave. Tartaroo is the place of final restraint for Satan and his demons. Gehenna is the punishment for the wicked and the end of their existence.

Is there an ever-burning Hell, No!