When people die, their soul go to a place to await resurrection. This place was referred to as the Hebrew word Sheol in the Old Testament. This word was translated into Greek in the New Testament as Hades. In the literal sense means ``grave'', but it its figurative sense refers to the afterlife place. Sheol or Hades is the adobe of the dead, the just and the unjust; however, they are separated inside
Luke 16:22-23. The word Hades can also refer exclusively in a negative sense to the adobe of the wicked where they are tormented with infernal fire
Luke 16:23.
Some people in this forum will disagree with me in the existence of a conscious soul after death going into a place, but that's OK
. But for those that do, let me continue with my point.
Jesus did not talk much about Hades. The three passages in the Gospels were Jesus mentioned it are in
Matthew 11:23 (parallel passage in
Luke 10:15) referring to a judgment on a city; then
Matthew 16:18 in response to Peter's confession; and then finally in
Luke 16:22-23, where he details the condition of the wicked in that place. Jesus also refers to the place where the departed souls of the believers go as ``paradise'' in
Luke 23:43. Hades is not yet the place of eternal destruction, so it is not yet the place of the actual eternal judgment.
There is another word that it is usually translated as ``hell'', or ``hell fire'' that refers to the eternal destruction. The Greek word is Gehenna, literally, the waste landfill outside of Jerusalem, figuratively, hell fire. This place is described as a place where destruction does not end, where there is an unquenchable fire, and where worm never dies
Mark 9:43-44.
The Gospels, and Jesus himself does refer directly or through allusions to this place in many places. The word Gehenna alone appears 11 times in the Gospel, and there are at least 21 times it is referred to with allusions like fire, unquenchable fire, everlasting fire, everlasting punishment, furnace of fire, worm does not die. The ones that did not believe the Gospel will be resurrected, and judged according to their works, and thrown alive into this place as described in
Revelation 20:11-15.
It is important to understand that nobody, through the entirety of human history, will be able to escape from this. The Gospels give to eternal judgment a front seat regarding relevance, more than Hades itself. Everybody will stand one day before God and be accountable to what they did with the Gospel, and their lives. In that day, nothing else will matter: fame, society acceptance, fear of men, wealth, dead works, friends and family, you name it. It will be each soul and God in a time of accountability. That is the day when everything that is secret will be revealed, and everything that is hidden will come to light
Luke 8:17,
Matthew 10:26,
Luke 12:2,
I Corinthians 4:5.
As a matter of contrast, everlasting life has more than three dozen mentions and allusions in the Gospels alone. I didn't count them all.
The more we understand what we are being saved from, the more we go on our knees grateful of this great salvation, and the mercies of God.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (NKJV)
Therefore, more than putting emphasis on hell as in Hades as the destiny of the wicked in evangelistic messages, the Gospel wants us to put the emphasis in eternal judgment where people stand before God, and in Gehenna, and in everlasting life.
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