When Jesus promised that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church, how did His first audience interpret His words? The answer to this question has far-reaching implications for those of us who confront the hellish powers of abortion today.

When Jesus spoke of Hell, He is usually quoted as having used the word “Gehenna,” which referred to a place well known to anyone who was familiar with Jerusalem. Gehenna was the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, also known as the Valley of Slaughter (Jeremiah 7:32) or Topheth (2 Kings 23:10): this was the notorious place where children were sacrificed, with the innocent blood shed in this place desecrating this land for generations to come (Psalm 106:38).
The Greek word “Gehenna” is a phonetic transcription of the Hebrew and Aramaic name of the Valley of Hinnom. Historical evidence strongly indicates that in His public teachings, Jesus would have likely spoken primarily Aramaic but when reading the OT scriptures in the synagogue He would have spoken Hebrew (although some of Jesus’ OT quotations as recorded in scripture are taken from the Greek Septuagint). Thus, when Jesus referred to Hell, His listeners almost certainly understood Him to be referring to the name of the Valley of Hinnom, with the fires of Hell clearly connected with the fires His listeners had witnessed in the Valley of Hinnom.

But Jesus is also quoted as having used the Greek word “Hades” a few times (including His statement to Peter about the “Gates of Hades” in Matthew 16:18, although it is likely that Jesus would have spoken to Peter in Aramaic or Hebrew rather than Greek, so in truth it is unlikely that Jesus spoke the word “Hades” to Peter). The Greek word “Hades” corresponds to the Hebrew word “Sheol,” a word which is used in reference to the afterlife of both righteous and wicked people. But every other time Jesus is quoted as using the word “Hades,” He seems to allude to the punishment inherent in the fires of Gehenna, so when Jesus uses the word “Hades” it generally seems appropriate to apply His words as a reference to the afterlife of wicked people.

For example, in Luke 16, Jesus described what happened to both a wicked rich man and righteous Lazarus after they died. They are both described as being in a general “place of the dead” (probably intended to correspond with the OT concept of “Sheol” in the minds of His audience) but the wicked rich man is described as being tormented in the flames of “Hades,” while righteous Lazarus is depicted as being embraced and comforted by Abraham (clearly not being tormented by any fires and clearly not in Hades).

Jesus’ reference to the flames of Hades clearly connects this Hell with the literal flames of Gehenna. Therefore, I conclude that for Jesus, the word “Hades” was basically equivalent to “Gehenna,” with Gehenna being used more often because of the vivid picture it would necessarily convey in the minds of His original audience.  Even the Jewish (non-Christian) writers of the Talmud equate “Sheol” with “Gehenna” whenever it is used to specifically refer to the destination of the souls of the wicked dead.

Psalm 9 teaches us that when the wicked seek to entrap the innocent, God will catch the wicked (“nations”) in their own trap (9:15-16). He will not forsake those who seek Him (9:10), but He promises to be a refuge to the oppressed (9:9), snatching them away from the dangers of the “gates of death” (9:13) and delivering them to the “gates of the daughter of Zion” (9:14). Even when the wicked slay the righteous, God promises to avenge their innocent blood (9:12), sending the wicked to Hell (9:17). To me the entire thrust of this Psalm, emphasizing our gratefulness for the way God protects us and how He judges the nations, is essential for understanding what Jesus meant by the “gates of Hell,” especially considering the references to “gates” in 9:13-14 and “Hell” in 9:17.

Of course in the Old Testament, what we read as “Hell” is the Hebrew word “Sheol,” signifying the general place of the dead. So the reference in Psalm 9:13 to the “gates of death” is practically synonymous with “gates of Hell” to a Hebrew mind, especially considering the parallelisms common to Hebrew poetry (such as Psalms and Proverbs).

Considering Psalm 9 in the light of these insights, it should now be clear that when wicked people choose to burn their children in the fires of Gehenna, God promises to avenge the innocent blood of these children by burning their murderers in those same fires. So the relevance of the “Gates of Hell” to our Abortion Holocaust should now be quite obvious.

But why did Jesus (and Psalm 9) refer to the “gates”? The gates of a city were not only access points, but Biblical references to “gates” typically emphasize the fact that civic business transactions and judicial matters were handled at the gates (Deuteronomy 16:18). So in Matthew 23:33 when Jesus warns the scribes and Pharisees of the judicial penalty of Gehenna which they deserve because of their murders, Jesus is essentially making another reference to the “Gates of Hell.”

Jesus’ promise that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church should also be considered in the light of God’s promise to Abraham that his offspring would possess the enemies’ gates (Genesis 22:17). By possessing an enemy’s gate, a hostile city could be controlled and ultimately conquered. Jesus’ words about the keys of the kingdom and the powers of binding and loosing (which appear in Matthew 16:19, immediately after His words about the Gates of Hell) also refer to the bold control He planned for His followers to exercise over the culture of death through His resurrection power.

In the early days of Operation Rescue, Randall Terry often emphasized the fact that gates are used for defense, not offense, saying “how many of you have ever been attacked by a gate?” As a result, he challenged us to attack the Gates of Hell at abortion chambers, encouraging us by citing Jesus’ promise that these gates would not prevail against Christ’s Church.

The gates of Sheol mentioned in Isaiah 38:10 clearly refer to Hezekiah being on his deathbed. Considering the fact that Jesus told His disciples about His death and resurrection in Matthew 16:21, it is evident to me that when Jesus spoke of the Gates of Hell three verses earlier, He was also referring to His own impending death, reassuring His disciples that even though He would soon die, the Church would be victorious over the devil because of His death and resurrection.  (I don’t see this interpretation of the Gates of Hell as in any way conflicting with my previous explanation of how the Gates of Hell relate to punishing murderers, but rather this is just an example of the way scriptures so often have robust, multi-layered meanings.)

The fulfillment of this view of Jesus’ reference to the Gates of Hell seems clear from Acts 2:31 (“His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption”), 1 Peter 3:18-20 (referring to Jesus preaching to the “spirits in prison”), and Revelation 1:18 (referring to Jesus holding the keys of death and Hell because of His resurrection).

So when Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 that “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against” the Church, should we understand these words to be descriptive or prescriptive? In other words, can we be assured that Jesus is promising here that the true Church will always be victorious against the Gates of Hell? Sadly, Church history seems to indicate the opposite.

I do believe that Jesus’ words here should be understood as a promise, but this is a promise which must be applied to become effective. In other words, if the Church does not take the initiative to confront the Gates of Hell, we cannot be assured that the Church will be victorious against the judicial powers which reign unchallenged in those gates. Rather, we must take the words of Christ here as our marching orders, that He is charging us with the responsibility of confronting the Gates of Hell while assuring us that when we do so, we will see victory through His resurrection power.

Other key passages such as John 10:10 are also important to consider in this context. When we understand that Jesus came to give us (and the innocent children, as in Matthew 18:1-14) an abundant life, and that the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, we should see clearly that proclaiming Jesus’ core message of Life (through the gateway of repentance, Acts 11:18) is the ultimate pathway to victory over the devil’s agenda.

If we are to faithfully proclaim a complete Biblical perspective on the Gates of Hell, we must also teach the truth that God will recompense the hellish actions of those who shed innocent blood in today’s Gehennas by punishing them in the ultimate Gehenna, the never-ending fires of Hell (if they remain unrepentant and therefore remain outside the scope of Jesus’ substitutionary atonement).

Embracing Jesus’ words on the Gates of Hell should embolden His Church to shine His Light into the darkest corners of today’s culture of death, trusting in Him to fulfill His promise through us only as we ourselves put His promises into practice in conflict against the darkness which permeates the Gates of Hell.

Victory at the Gates of Hell: the Young Church

To consider further how God wants His people to respond to the Gates of Hell, read my book God’s Plan: Transforming the Gates of Hell into the Gates of Heaven (available for free online).