The Bible Truth about Hell

9 We have special insight into the meaning of this parable because it is one that Jesus carefully deciphered for His disciples. In the parable is a man who sows a field of wheat. But at night, the man’s enemy sneaks into the field and plants tares—that is, weeds—right in with the wheat. When both begin to grow, the man’s workers ask him if they should rid the field of the tares. The man instructs them to refrain from doing so until the wheat is ready to harvest, as they may mistake the wheat for the tares, given that the two look nearly identical in their early stages of growth. At the time of the harvest when they are easily distinguishable, the man tells them, then will they separate the wheat from the tares. What happens? The wheat will get stored in a barn, while the tares will be discarded and incinerated. This sounds a lot like what the Valley of Hinnom became, doesn’t it? The tares in the parable were dumped and burned, just like the waste collected in the valley. Jesus, in His subsequent explanation, confirmed the following: • The wheat represents God’s people. • The tares represent those who follow the devil (v. 38). • The time of the harvest, when the wheat and tares will be separated, represents “the end of the age” (v. 39)—that is, the end of the world, when every person will be judged as either a wheat or a tare. Christ focused on the outcome of the tares especially: “As the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age” (v. 40). In other words, the fire that will destroy the wicked will not start until the end of the world—until the day of judgment. The apostle Peter said, “The Lord knoweth how ... to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Peter 2:9 KJV, emphasis added). This must mean that punishment for one’s sins occurs not at the moment of death but, as Christ refers to in Matthew 13, at a future time: when “all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, … [are] cast ... into the furnace of fire” (vv. 41, 42). The fires of Gehenna were a symbol of the coming judgment—not something happening now. Just because most of Christianity teaches that the Even though no one is being punished right now, the Bible does say that the ungodly will be punished: “If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner” (Proverbs 11:31). According to Scripture, no one is being punished in hellfire at this moment.