Connection between Greek word used for “Hell,” and garbage dumb.
Matt. 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell (Gehenna – garbage dump) fire….29) 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 – garbage dump). 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 – garbage dump).
Matt.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 – garbage dump).
Matt.18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, 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(Gehenna – garbage dump) fire.
Matt.23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell (Gehenna – garbage dump) than yourselves.
Matt.23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell(Gehenna – garbage dump)?
Mark 9:43 And 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 – garbage dump), into the fire that never shall be quenched:…45) And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell(Gehenna – garbage dump),, into the fire that never shall be quenched:…47) 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 eyes to be cast into hell (Gehenna – garbage dump), fire:
Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell (Gehenna – garbage dump); yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
James 3:6 And 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 – garbage dump).
We see Jesus used the word gehenna, for hell, and his audience understood Gehenna was a phrase likening the place of Hell to Jerusalem’s garbage pit.
Gehenna (translated as Hell) was the place outside of the old city of Jerusalem called the Valley of Hinnon where waste was dumped; not only trash and garbage were disposed of there, but also corpses of humans and animals were burnt in the dump. In translating the Bible, the word Gehenna was used as a picturesque means of giving concrete meaning to the idea of a real Hell. Gehenna was a place of despoliation, rotting, and total destruction and disintegration.
Hell thus is defined as that place where nothing has relationship to anything else. As the refuse in a garbage dumb is random and unrelated everything that follows the culture of hell exists in isolation from everything else. Hell is the denial of God and without God there can be no meaning. All is random. All is chaos. All lacks cohesion. All is one large mass of unrelated, rotting total destruction and disintegration.
I submit that this definition of Hell is part of that which is being pursued by modern man.
Illustration — University / Multiversity
In this sense, the modern European philosophers/village atheists are creating hell for themselves and their disciples! The very definition of postmodernism, critical theory, deconstructionism, and multiculturalism is this idea that there is no God that exists who provides objective, meaning, and order. There is no God who exists as one who provides an integration point for all of reality. Whenever man throws off God, man builds a Hell culture.
And sometimes, that cultural Hell is more literal than we’d like to think.
We find the fire of Hell that will not be quenched in our abortuaries where saline burning is often used to destroy infants. We find the fire of Hell that will not be quenched in the burned out lives of sexual perverts who die young in the attempt to satiate their fiery lusts.
Understand that for Biblical Christians we can build heavenly cultures because we have God as our total integration point for all reality and meaning. The pagan and God hater though can only integrate himself into total nothingness. The pagan and God hater, because of their hatred of God is a total abstraction who can have no genuine relationship to anyone or anything else because the only being who can provide the concrete point of relationship has been denied.
Far better men then myself have called this integrating into the void. It is the garbage dump aspect of Hell where all is chaos and random because all integration and meaning is absent. The best that man without God can do in this setting is to try and use his own fiat (self-creating and legislating) word in order to impose and force meaning on the particulars that have no inherent meaning. In such a situation it becomes the war of all against all as all seek to be the meaning makers.
Fallen man literally lives in intellectual hell and he takes that intellectual hell and incarnates it into culture.
The consequence of the Gospel in people’s lives is that they leave their cultural hell and begin to see God’s will done on earth as it is done in heaven.
