With President Obama signing a bill allowing taxpayer money to fund stem cell research, the debate is reborn (pun not necessarily intended) about when life begins. The far right party generally says that life begins at conception and that destroying a 5 day old blastocyst is murder. The far left says that it is definitely not a human yet, but opinions vary widely as to when it actually becomes one.

(I’ve always found it a strange double irony that the left fights so hard against capital punishment but is so easily swayed to kill embryos, or even 2nd or 3rd trimester fetuses; the right will fight to save the life of each and every embryo (even if they will be simply discarded into the trash after a few years) but once they are born, wants to offer them no assistance for living.)

Few doubt that research done on embryonic stem cells would certainly lead to some incredible medical breakthroughs, but at what expense?

I love Seinfeld. There is a character on the show named David Puddy who proclaims to be a Christian. One day Puddy woke up and looked outside his apartment door and saw his neighbor’s newspaper; he wanted to read it but he knows that stealing is a sin. So he called back into his apartment for Elaine and asked her to go get the paper for him to read. When she asked why he couldn’t get it himself – he indicated that he can’t because it’s against his beliefs to steal. The story continues from here but this is all I need for my illustration.

So – what am I getting at? I don’t know when God determines life begins. Maybe it’s at conception. Maybe it’s when the embryo attaches to the uterus. Maybe it’s when He “breathed in him the breath of life and man became a living soul” – I surely don’t know – but I know for sure (just like Puddy) that I don’t want to commit murder, so I don’t want to volunteer my approval for stem cell research.

Now let’s say that as a direct result of stem cell research, scientists are able to determine a cure for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease and someone I love needs the medicine or procedure that can cure them. Am I going to accept the cure? If I say “yes”, am I really any better than Puddy?

A British priest in the nineteenth century wrote the following about what hell would be like for eternity:

“A little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out! See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the faces of all in hell — despair, desperate and horrible.” (George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God, p.300)

To be honest, I can barely even read the above paragraph.

I have never been comfortable with the idea of eternal hell (not that my comfort has anything do with God’s perfect will and judgment). He is God and I am not. Whatever he says goes, and I humbly and willingly submit and thank Him daily for his grace that is extended to me. I have spent more than 30 years believing in eternal hell. Many great men of God who are better men that I can ever hope to be have given their lives to save others from hell.

The problem is…this doesn’t seem to fit with God’s character. God is immutable (Mal 3:6). The God who said love your enemies, is going to pronounce an infinite torture sentence on His enemies as punishment for a finite life of sin (definitely not “an eye for an eye”). Jesus told us to forgive “70 times 7” but billions of people who never even knew He existed (or even chose to be born) will never see God’s forgiveness. He told us (through Paul) to not let the sun go down on our wrath, yet He is willing to allow his wrath to endure forever. He even specifically said burning children in a fire is abominable and something that he hates (Deut 12:31). There are many more issues that could be listed here as well.

If you were raised as a fundamentalist (as I was), I already know all of your arguments, and I doubt this brief article will convince you otherwise. I just hope that maybe reading this will spark you to investigate this on your own and read the Bible asking the Holy Spirit for guidance.

Please understand that I am not trying to say that there is no hell. There is definitely a judgment and a punishment awaiting those that do not know Christ. Hell is to be avoided at all costs; it will be nothing short of horrible. After much prayer, intense Bible study and exhaustive research using even the original Greek, I have been led to conclude that the punishment of hell in the Bible is not eternal.

This is not a simple study. Some of the things that must be addressed are as follows:

1. What is hell? Who was hell created for?

2. What is the human soul? What Hebrew and Greek words are translated “soul” into our English Bible?

3. Do humans automatically possess an immortal soul? If so, why did God put an angel in the garden of Eden to guard the Tree of Life (Gen 3:22)

4. What did God say would happen if man ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? What did Satan say would happen? (Gen 2:17, 3:4)

5. Is there a difference between Soul and Spirit in a man? If so – what are the differences? If not – explain Hebrews 4:12

6. What words are translated “hell” into our English Bible? (there are 3 in the NT and 1 in the OT and you need to know the definition of each)

7. What words are translated “eternal” into our English Bible? Is the same word always translated “eternal” each time it’s used in other places?

8. Read I John 5:11-12. If you were spending eternity in hell, wouldn’t you have “life” albeit a very unpleasant one? Would it not be heresy to say that you can obtain eternal life (of any kind) from someone other than Jesus?

9. What did the earliest Christians think about eternal hell?

10. Why does mainstream Christianity/most Christians think hell is eternal? Where did this school of thought come from? (hint: It’s not in the OT or Jewish thinking at all)

11. Why did the apostle Paul not mention hell once?

The above is nowhere near a comprehensive list (I can easily double this list), but are some of the things you must undertake in order to get a complete grasp of this topic.

A study like this is eye-opening and amazing, regardless of whether you come to the same conclusion that I have. I wholeheartedly recommend you spend some time solidifying your beliefs in this area; you will be blessed with another measure of faith if you do.