The word “hell” is found 31 times in the Old Testament and yet consistently people try and tell you hell didn’t come on the scene until it was “invented” by the New Testament writers.

In an online essay entitled, “Even If I did Believe . . . ,” that is said to be used to train evangelists for its insights into the mind of an unbeliever, author Tim Maroney writes, “Jesus preaching love in no way atones for Yahweh's many hideous crimes; lest we forget, it was at the time of Jesus that he created Hell.

“This cruelest of all concentration camps (certainly far worse than the ones created by the Nazis) was at no time mentioned in the Old Testament, and the wrathful and threatening god of the Old Testament would hardly have omitted any chance to terrify his worshippers. (Incidentally, the ‘Sheol’ of the Old Testament is simply a generic term for the afterlife; neither modern scholarship nor Judaic tradition equates it with Hell.)”

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In Old Testament times, hell had two compartments—a torment side and what Jesus Christ called “paradise,” or “Abraham’s bosom.”

When Jonah prayed to God from inside the whale’s belly, he reported, “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.” David, in Psalm 16, said of God, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.”

Jordan explains, “You say, ‘But if hell is a place of torment, why would Jonah and David go there?’ but obviously they didn’t go to a place of torment. They, like Lazarus, went to Abraham’s bosom.

“Now, why would Christ call it ‘Abraham’s bosom’? Well, the bosom is the heart of something and who is it that God gave the rulership of the earth to? The nation Israel. They are His earthly kingdom people. The earth resides in the bosom of Abraham’s seed. They are His people to embrace the earth for Him. So it’s a metaphor; a figure of speech, a title that has great meaning to it.

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Paradise started out in the Garden of Eden and was later moved to the heart of the earth. Then, from II Corinthians 12, we know Paul “was caught up into the third heaven into paradise.”

Jordan explains, “What happens is that somewhere after the ascension of Christ, and before the time Paul’s caught up there, paradise was moved from the heart of the earth into New Jerusalem.

“Go over to Hebrews 12:22 (‘But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels’) and it’s not Mount Sinai on the earth, which is associated with the Old Covenant, but it’s Mount Zion in the heavens. You’ve come to the heavenly Jerusalem associated with the New Covenant.

“Notice that in that New Jerusalem—that heavenly Jerusalem—there’s ‘an innumerable company of angels.’ The next verse speaks of ‘the general assembly and church of the firstborn.’ That’s the kingdom church. There is God and there are ‘the spirits of just men made perfect.’

“All those people who were in Abraham’s bosom when Hebrews 12 was written are now up in New Jerusalem and that’s why in II Corinthians 12, when Paul is caught up in to the third heaven, he was called up into paradise.

“So when (God) takes ‘the spirits of just men made perfect’ out of the heart of the earth and puts them up in new Jerusalem, who’s left in the heart of the earth? Who’s left in hell then? Unbelievers.

“As a Believer today, when you die, II Corinthian 5:8 says, ‘To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.’ Where’s He? Well, He’s in the third heaven. He’s in New Jerusalem, according to the passage. So, when we die we just step right out of this dimension into the dimension God’s in.

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When Christ is on the Cross, He says to the thief next to him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

Jordan explains, “Notice He says ‘today,’ and not 30 years from now in the resurrection? He says, ‘Today you’re going to be with me in paradise. You’re secure. I’m gonna take care of my own; don’t worry about it. You’ve made it.’

“This thing about this thief on the cross is tremendously significant. First, because as I said, the two thieves represent the two groups in Israel. There are those who are mocking Christ, standing at the foot of the Cross saying, ‘If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. You said you were the messiah—prove it!’

“The thief on the cross is an illustration that the Cross and salvation by faith alone can never be separated. Because when He says, ‘Today thou shalt be with me in paradise,’ He doesn’t say, ‘Go offer a sacrifice; you can be with me in paradise.’

“I mean, look at what He told that leper in Mark 1: ‘Go offer the things that Moses commanded.’ Why doesn’t He say that to the thief? Well, the dude’s on the cross. He can’t get down and do it, can he? Duh!

“Christ doesn’t say, ‘After you’re baptized you can be with me in paradise.’ Now, Jesus, on the evening of His resurrection tells His apostles, ‘Go into all the world; preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. And he that believeth not shall be damned.’

“But he didn’t say to the thief, ‘Now that you’ve believed be baptized and you’ll be with me in the kingdom.’ Why not? Because he’s on the cross! He can’t get down and get baptized!

“He doesn’t say, ‘Hey, here’s a bunch of good works you need to do.’ Why not? He’s on the cross! He can’t get down and do them! So what you see here in this repentant thief is one who’s turned in faith and faith alone to Christ. Because he has no good works to offer; he’s been doing bad works. He has no sacrifice to offer. He has no baptism to perform. He can’t get down and do those things.

“Now, the popular argument to that is, ‘Well, he would have if he could have.’ But the point is he didn’t because he didn’t get down! He died. He died without baptism although baptism was required. He died without good works although good works were required. He died without sacrifice although sacrifices were required. Why in the world is that?

“It’s verses like Mark 16:16 and the passage we read a minute ago in Luke 7:29-30, and Mark 1:4, and Acts 2:38 and James 2 that cause problems for folks when they begin to talk about how is it that God saves somebody in any dispensation; how is it that a person can stand just before the justice of God.

“James 2:24 states, ‘Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.’ Well, you have a hard time applying that to the thief on the cross, don’t you?

“So what theologians do, instead of trying to distinguish what’s going on here and recognize it, they say, ‘Well, we need to change these requirements so Mark 16 really doesn’t say [he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.] It says, [he that believes and is saved shall be baptized.]’ Because that’s what religion is more comfortable with. That isn’t what it said, though.

“You understand the statement, ‘He that eats food and digests it gets energy from it’? If you eat food and don’t digest it, do you expect to get energy? Not much. ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.’ What do you think in that verse is the critical thing?

“Well, if you don’t believe, does it do you any good to get baptized? No. But if you believe, what would you do? Faith does what it’s told. ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.’ If God’s Word tells a man to be baptized, what would faith do?

“Faith would believe what God said and when God’s Word said to do something, it would go do it, wouldn’t it? It’s not the work that had anything to do with the salvation. The work would be the outward manifestation of the faith in the message God gave them. The work had to do with the message God gave them.

“That clears up all of the Calvinist/ Armenian fighting-fussing-fuming-heady-high-minded-philosophical speculations and all that other stuff you get involved in.”