QUICK FACTS: LUKE 16:23
DOES LUKE 16:23 REALLY TEACH THAT THE DEAD ARE ALIVE AND BURNING IN HELL?
Millions of Christians have been taught that when an unsaved person dies, the body dies but the soul remains consciously alive and immediately enters a place of fiery torment called Hell.
One of the principal passages used to support this belief is Jesus’ account of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16.
The King James Bible reads:
Luke 16:23 — KJV
“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments…”
At first sight, that certainly appears to say that the rich man died and immediately found himself alive and suffering in Hell.
But there is an important problem:
THE GREEK TEXT DOES NOT SAY GEHENNA.
The Greek word in Luke 16:23 is:
ᾅδης — HADES
So before constructing a doctrine about eternal punishment from the English word “hell,” we need to distinguish the different biblical words that English translations have historically rendered by that one word.
LUKE 16:23 ACTUALLY SAYS “HADES”
The Greek text reads:
ἐν τῷ ᾅδῃ — en tō hadē
Meaning:
“IN HADES.”
The Berean Literal Bible therefore reads:
Luke 16:23 — BLB
“And in Hades, having lifted up his eyes, being in torment, he sees Abraham from afar, and Lazarus in his bosom.”
The BLB preserves the word:
HADES
rather than translating it simply as “hell.”
That distinction is extremely important.
HADES AND GEHENNA ARE NOT THE SAME GREEK WORD
This is where considerable confusion can arise.
The New Testament uses:
ᾅδης — HADES
and:
γέεννα — GEHENNA
They are different Greek words.
Yet older English translations such as the KJV can translate both using the same English word:
“HELL.”
When the distinction disappears in translation, readers can easily assume that every occurrence of “hell” describes exactly the same thing.
But the original Greek does not allow us to make that assumption.
WHAT CORRESPONDS TO HADES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT?
The Greek Hades commonly corresponds to the Hebrew:
שְׁאוֹל — SHEOL
Sheol refers to the realm or state of the dead and is frequently translated:
the grave
the pit
or:
Sheol
depending upon the translation and context.
This connection can be seen particularly clearly when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament.
For example, Psalm 16:10 uses Sheol, while its quotation in Acts 2:27 uses Hades.
That gives us a direct biblical relationship:
HEBREW: SHEOL
GREEK: HADES
Therefore, we should not automatically equate every reference to Hades with the final punishment associated with Gehenna or the lake of fire.
WHAT, THEN, IS GEHENNA?
Now compare Luke 16:23 with Jesus' words in Matthew 10:28.
Matthew 10:28 — Berean Literal Bible
“And you should not be afraid of those killing the body but not being able to kill the soul. Indeed rather you should fear the One being able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
Here the Greek word is:
γέεννα — GEHENNA
Not Hades.
And notice something extremely important about Jesus' statement:
BOTH SOUL AND BODY CAN BE DESTROYED IN GEHENNA.
Jesus does not say here that God preserves the wicked eternally alive in Gehenna.
He uses the Greek verb ἀπόλλυμι — apollymi, translated in the BLB as:
“DESTROY.”
Whatever theological position we ultimately take concerning final punishment, that word must be allowed its proper place in the discussion.
JESUS SAID GOD CAN DESTROY BOTH
Look carefully at the contrast:
Man can:
kill the body
but:
God can:
DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY IN GEHENNA.
That statement presents a serious challenge to the claim that the human soul is inherently indestructible and therefore must remain consciously alive forever.
Jesus explicitly says God is able to:
DESTROY THE SOUL.
That deserves much more attention than it sometimes receives.
WHAT HAPPENS TO HADES ITSELF?
Revelation gives us another vital piece of evidence.
Revelation 20:14 — Berean Literal Bible
“And Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”
Notice the sequence:
DEATH
and:
HADES
are themselves eventually thrown into:
THE LAKE OF FIRE.
Therefore:
HADES CANNOT SIMPLY BE IDENTICAL TO THE LAKE OF FIRE.
If Hades is thrown into the lake of fire, the two cannot simply be treated as interchangeable terms.
And Revelation calls the lake of fire:
“THE SECOND DEATH.”
FIRST DEATH AND SECOND DEATH
This distinction helps us understand the biblical sequence.
There is:
THE PRESENT STATE OF DEATH
followed eventually by:
RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT
and then the final judgment described as:
THE SECOND DEATH.
Revelation 20:11–15 places the lake of fire after the resurrection and Great White Throne judgment.
This means we should be extremely cautious about teaching that every unsaved person is already experiencing the final lake-of-fire judgment immediately upon death.
The final judgment depicted in Revelation 20 occurs at the appointed judgment.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THE DEAD?
Consider the language of Ecclesiastes:
Ecclesiastes 9:5
“For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing…”
And:
Ecclesiastes 9:10
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.”
Psalm 146:4 likewise says of man:
“His spirit goes forth; he returns to his earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.”
These passages should be considered alongside any interpretation claiming that the dead continue thinking, remembering and experiencing conscious life immediately after death.
THEN WHAT ABOUT THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS?
This is the crucial question.
If Luke 16:19–31 is treated as a literal description of the geography and conscious experiences of dead people, it naturally becomes a major proof text for conscious existence after death.
But there are strong reasons to examine whether Jesus is instead using a story with symbolic and parabolic features to make a theological and moral point.
Consider what appears in the account:
Abraham's bosom.
A conversation across a great chasm.
The rich man's tongue.
Lazarus' finger.
A request for water.
And finally the central message:
“THEY HAVE MOSES AND THE PROPHETS; LET THEM HEAR THEM.”
The climax is not a geographical explanation of the afterlife.
It concerns people who refuse to hear Moses and the Prophets.
JESUS TELLS US THE CENTRAL LESSON
The account concludes:
Luke 16:31 — Berean Literal Bible
“And he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one should rise out from the dead.’”
That final sentence points us directly toward the spiritual warning.
People who refuse God's testimony will not necessarily believe even when confronted with resurrection.
The passage should therefore not be isolated from its literary purpose and turned automatically into a detailed map of what happens immediately after death.
THE KJV WORD “HELL” CAN HIDE IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS
This is one of the real problems with using the English word “hell” without checking the underlying biblical language.
Depending upon the passage, the KJV can use “hell” where the underlying word is:
SHEOL
or:
HADES
or:
GEHENNA.
Those words are not simply identical.
So when somebody says:
“The Bible says people are in Hell.”
we should immediately ask:
WHICH WORD?
SHEOL?
HADES?
GEHENNA?
THE LAKE OF FIRE?
Only then can we properly examine what the passage actually teaches.
AN IMPORTANT CORRECTION
There is one point from the older article that should be tightened considerably.
It is too broad to say:
“Hades simply means the grave.”
Hades is closely associated with Sheol and the realm/state of the dead, and in some contexts “grave” communicates that idea. But its lexical range is broader than simply a physical burial grave.
Likewise, Gehenna originally derives from the Valley of Hinnom and became associated with divine judgment. The Greek word itself does not literally mean “Great White Throne Judgment Day.”
Those distinctions actually strengthen the research because we don't need to exaggerate what the Greek words mean.
The strongest argument comes from allowing Scripture to define its own sequence.
THE BIBLICAL SEQUENCE
The picture presented in Revelation 20 is:
THE DEAD ARE RAISED
↓
JUDGMENT TAKES PLACE
↓
DEATH AND HADES ARE DESTROYED
↓
THE LAKE OF FIRE
↓
“THIS IS THE SECOND DEATH.”
Revelation 20:14
That makes an important distinction between Hades and the final judgment.
DOES MATTHEW 10:28 TEACH ETERNAL CONSCIOUS TORMENT?
Jesus' actual language should be taken seriously:
“DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY IN GEHENNA.”
He did not say in this verse:
“Preserve both soul and body alive forever in Gehenna.”
He said:
DESTROY.
And Revelation describes the ultimate punishment as:
“THE SECOND DEATH.”
This is why Christians who hold to conditional immortality or final destruction argue that the ultimate fate of the wicked is death and destruction rather than everlasting conscious life in torment.
Other Christians interpret the judgment texts differently, so Matthew 10:28 alone does not settle every aspect of that wider debate.
But it certainly deserves to be read exactly as Jesus gave it.
QUICK FACT CONCLUSION
Luke 16:23 in the Greek does not contain the word:
GEHENNA.
It contains:
HADES.
Matthew 10:28, however, actually uses:
GEHENNA
and Jesus says God can:
“DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY”
there.
Then Revelation 20:14 tells us:
DEATH AND HADES ARE THROWN INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE
and calls that final punishment:
“THE SECOND DEATH.”
So we should not collapse Hades, Gehenna, Sheol and the lake of fire into one English word and assume they all mean exactly the same thing.
And we certainly should not construct our doctrine merely from the KJV's use of the English word “hell.”
GO BACK TO THE HEBREW.
GO BACK TO THE GREEK.
COMPARE SCRIPTURE WITH SCRIPTURE.
Then ask the crucial question:
Does the Bible really teach that the wicked receive everlasting life in torment—or does final judgment ultimately result in the second death?
That is the question the biblical evidence must answer.
OLD RESEARCH ARTICLE
Luke 16:23 — The Rich Man and Lazarus, Hades, Gehenna and the Truth About Hell
Read the full research article
Research by Simon Brown
wwwrealdiscoveriesorg-simon.blogspot.com
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