Hades Is Not Hell, the Editorial Boasts
The editorial celebrates that Adventists for years have taught that hades is not a place of punishment but only unconsciousness, denying conscious punishment after death.
Por Rodrigo Custódio ·
The moment
On Thursday, June 30, 1881, the Signs of the Times of Oakland, California, carried in volume 7, number 25, page 296, an editorial by J. H. Waggoner — signed with the initials J. H. W. — titled "Hades Is Not Hell." It was not a Bible study among others: it was a celebration, a doctrinal trophy raised before the public.
The reason for the celebration: Adventists, says the editorial, "for years" have been insisting before the public that hades has been improperly translated as hell, that the word "does not denote a place of punishment," and that gehenna is the Greek term correctly translated as hell. In this — the text boasts — they have been supported by "some of the best authorities," though opposed by the "crowd of interested theologians."
What is at stake is not philology: it is the hereafter. If hades is not a place of punishment, then the rich man of Luke 16 is not in torments; if hades is merely the "invisible condition" of the dead, death is unconsciousness and judgment is postponed to a future without a present. The editorial retires hell by verbal decree — change the dictionary and, with it, the destiny.
And the tone is that of a victorious campaign: "for years" insisting "before the public." This is not about discovering the truth in the Scriptures, but about winning the debate — with anonymous authorities cited as a shield and opponents disqualified in advance as "interested theologians." Doctrine becomes a party banner, and the celebration is for the banner, not for the Bible.
Stone crypt with an ancient sarcophagus and open door — hades reduced to a mere grave — period painting.
The absurdity
The editorial celebrates as a victory the emptying of hades: the Greek word would denote no punishment at all — only the invisible and unconscious condition of the dead. Hell, by editorial decree, ceases to exist in the vocabulary; and what has no name, the text suggests, has no reality. Read the exact words of the printed page, in translation:
"Adventists for years have been insisting before the public that hades has been improperly translated as hell; that it does not denote a place of punishment; and that gehenna is the Greek word correctly translated as hell."
Source: Signs of the Times, vol. 7, no. 25, June 30, 1881 — p. 296.
Highlighted clipping of the printed page with the quoted passage, edition of June 30, 1881, p. 296.
Why this is serious
The argument is a play on words against Christ Himself. Jesus used hades to describe conscious torment: the rich man "in hades, lifted up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke 16:23). It matters little what the lexicons say about the etymology of the word: the Lord used it to say "torments." Whoever decrees that hades "does not denote a place of punishment" is not correcting translators — he is correcting Jesus' vocabulary.
The distinction between hades and gehenna, moreover, does not rescue the system. Gehenna — which the editorial itself admits to be "hell" — is described by Jesus as a place of "unquenchable fire," where "the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-48), and Revelation shows the condemned in torment whose "smoke rises forever and ever" (Rev 14:11). Changing the Greek label does not erase the content: hell is still there, under another name — and with the same fire.
The appeal to "authorities" is a prestige fallacy with an unknown address: "some of the best authorities" — which ones? The text does not say, does not cite, does not name. And the opponents are dismissed as "interested theologians" — interested in what? In defending what the Bible says? Disqualifying the opponent instead of responding to the biblical text is soapbox rhetoric, not exegesis; it is the debate won by shouting, not by Scripture. And when the pulpit learns that trick, the congregation learns it too: people begin to win arguments without ever opening the Bible.
And the pastoral effect is corrosive: if hades does not punish, death loses its salutary terror and the gospel loses its urgency. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb 9:27) — after death, judgment; not sleep, not unconsciousness, not a dark and silent room. The editorial may retire the word; retiring the reality is beyond its power.
Rural cemetery at dusk before the church — atmospheric period painting.
The verdict of the Scriptures
Luke 16:23 buries the editorial in a single sentence: the rich man, "in hades, lifted up his eyes, being in torments." To lift up the eyes, to see, to be in torments — three verbs of consciousness in the verse, in the exact word that the editorial declares incapable of denoting punishment. Jesus did not ask permission from Adventist philology to use hades that way; He simply used it — and the Master's use defines the word.
John confirms consciousness beyond death: "I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?" (Rev 6:9-10). Disembodied souls that cry out, remember their own martyrdom, and argue for justice — conscious people in the "place" that the editorial says is a place of nothing.
Paul decrees the sequence for everyone: "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor 5:10). To appear, to receive according to what was done: personal, conscious, individual judgment — not dissolution into a collective and invisible unconsciousness. No one "appears" while asleep.
And the apostle awaited death as an encounter, not as a blackout: he desired "to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil 1:23). To depart in order to be — immediate and conscious presence with the Lord. The hades of the editorial is an empty crypt with the plaque torn off; the hades of the Bible has people inside — seeing, remembering, crying out, waiting. Between Waggoner's decree and the word of Christ, the Christian's choice is not difficult.