Ever since I came to know the Lord as a Jew, I’ve been puzzled by how many Christians inconsistently interpret Scripture—reading some passages literally and others figuratively, seemingly without a consistent framework.

For instance, when the book of Jude refers to Sodom suffering the judgment of “eternal fire,” most Christians are comfortable interpreting that as figurative. They understand that the fire did not actually burn forever—it was symbolic of total destruction.

But then, when Jesus uses the exact same Greek phrase—“eternal fire”—suddenly, many insist it must be literal, referring to a fire that never goes out and torments without end.

Why the inconsistency?

Take Revelation 14. Christians agree the “beast” isn’t a literal animal. They also acknowledge that the “wine of God’s wrath,” “poured full strength into the cup of His anger,” is not literal wine, not a literal cup, not a literal pouring.

But just a few verses later, when it says “the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever,” or speaks of the “mark” of the beast—those details must be literal?

Why the selective literalism?

This inconsistency has a long theological history. It traces back to Augustine, the 5th-century bishop-theologian who systematized the doctrine of eternal conscious torment (ECT)—the idea of hell as a place of everlasting torture.

But here’s something most Christians don’t know: Augustine was one of the few major Church Fathers who was illiterate in Greek.

Unlike earlier theologians — most of whom leaned heavily toward one form or another of Universal Reconciliation — Augustine could neither read nor write the languages of the Old nor New Testaments. He interpreted the Scriptures through Latin translations, often missing the original nuance, symbolism, and idiomatic expressions familiar to Hebrew- and Greek-speaking Jews of the time.

That matters. Imagine someone reading Sophocles’ Antigone with only a basic grasp of Greek, then writing philosophical conclusions based on misunderstood metaphors. Now imagine that same person’s misreadings, 1,500 years later, becoming the theological foundation for many doctrines of a major denomination in the largest world religion. That’s the story of Christian fundamentalism, still holding to the same ideas brought to America by Puritan John Edwards. And it’s not as if the Puritans understood the Jewish culture, thinking, beliefs, or the Hebrew or Greek languages. And yet, fundamentalists refuse to challenge their own “systematic theology” beliefs because when they do, they most often get boycotted. I know because I’ve seen it all from the inside, multiple times, when I was a leader in the Messianic movement in Israel. I’ve seen so many Jewish believers, even pastors, getting excommunicated for challenging Edwards’ theology.

Augustine’s interpretation of “hell” as eternal conscious torment was later picked up and amplified by two more influential figures: John Calvin and Martin Luther. Then, across the ocean, the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards took the worst of their teachings and delivered America its most infamous sermon: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God—a grotesque vision of a wrathful God dangling sinners over the fires of eternal torment.

Today, the legacy of this doctrine continues through men like John MacArthur, John Piper, Paul Washer, and most modern Calvinist, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Evangelical teachers. They preach the same Augustinian-Calvinist version of hell—a version brought to America through Edwards, and tragically embraced by nearly every Messianic Jewish believer, congregation and organization I know in Israel, including the Bible College at ONE FOR ISRAEL, where I worked for many years.

According to this doctrine, most of humanity—including the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust—are now being tormented forever in God’s “cosmic furnace.”

Let that sink in.

Is it a coincidence that Adolf Hitler, who quoted Luther frequently, acted out Luther’s recommendations to burn Jewish books and synagogues, and ultimately sought to eradicate the Jewish people? Luther’s infamous tract On the Jews and Their Lies laid out a chilling blueprint that Hitler followed with terrifying precision. He didn’t invent the hatred—he inherited it from Christian theology.

Let me be blunt: The doctrine of eternal conscious torment is especially toxic when applied to Jews.

It teaches, implicitly or explicitly, that God Himself will burn His chosen people in eternal flames—so why shouldn’t we treat them with the same contempt? It’s no surprise that much of Christian antisemitism throughout history was rooted in this theology of divine cruelty.

But the original Hebrew and Greek texts do not support this view.

As a theologian, I spent two years deeply researching all I can on the doctrine of hell. Please consider reading my book, HELL: A Jewish Perspective on a Christian Doctrine. In it, I lay out the biblical case against ECT. The Scriptures do not teach eternal, inescapable torment. They do not describe a vengeful, sadistic, Hellenistic god bent on retributive punishment.

Rather, they reveal a God of mercy and justice, whose fire purifies—not tortures.

Yes, we will all pass through fire. But it is the fire of refinement, not eternal punishment. And after that fire has done its work, Scripture promises that every person—whether “saved” or not—will be restored, and will joyfully offer blessing, honor, glory, and praise to God.

That’s the true Good News.

ECT Hellfire Is Why Jewish Evangelism Fails so Terribly

This week, I had a deeply meaningful conversation with a man in his 30s—a new Jewish believer in Jesus who had recently joined the Messianic movement, but now finds himself stepping away from it. He confided in me that he was just one small step away from abandoning the faith altogether. Why? Because he had been led to believe that all Christians embrace the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT)—and he simply couldn’t reconcile that view with the character of God. It was unbearable to him. He was ready to walk away—until he came across my writings and reached out.

The Messianic movement in Israel spends 50 to 100 million USD every year trying to evangelize the Jewish people, especially in Israel, and they fail miserably. In 2009, I invented and led the ONE FOR ISRAEL evangelistic initiative in Israel. No one knows more about Jewish evangelism in the Messianic movement in Israel than I do. A movement that was about 10k members 25 years ago is still about 10k members today, and over 60% of its members aren’t even Jews. Israeli Jews often join it. But statistically, 95% leave within one year. Why? Because the Messianic movement holds to a doctrine that makes zero sense to them—Augustine’s Eternal Conscious Torment is repulsive to any reasonable Jewish person.

When you hate Judaism so much (again, because you believe it leads to eternal hellfire), you won’t want to engage with it. From your perspective, it’s demonic—because every other way is from Satan and leads to him.

You understand the logic, right?

Thus, the Jewish people’s path to embracing their Messiah Yeshua will not go through the ‘Messianic Jewish’ movement unless they repent. They are blocking the God of Israel from Israel because they believe in pagan-made doctrines. But I know that God will do amazing things here in Israel. I really hope to be part of it somehow.