Rev. John Cortright brings thirty years of biblical teaching experience to bear on the critical subject of hell. Most Christians believe that hell is the place that one goes to immediately at death if he or she is unsaved. In hell a person is supposedly tormented without relief, not for ten, twenty, or thirty years, nor even for a million years, but for all of eternity. This grotesque mythology has grown out of exaggerations by people like Dante whose imaginations, no doubt, got the better of their exegetical powers.
John demonstrates from the Scriptures that the dead are in Sheol (also called Hades) where they are unconscious ("asleep") until Jesus comes to resurrect. Even so, after the millennial rule, a great white throne will be set up and the final judgment will occur. At this time everyone whose name is not found written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire (gehenna) to be burned to death.
John shows that the idea of gehenna (the word translated hell in the
