The nature of Hell.

[timspong]

Recent threads have been on; how protestants don’t adhere to the Apostles creed because of its mention that Jesus went to hell. Also, another about the thief on the cross and how he could be in paradise with Christ that day, if Christ were not going to heaven for 3 days.

Anyhow to my understanding Sheol (Hebrew) and Hades (Greek) are basically the same and are sometimes translated to hell. However, in our modern mindset we often assume that hell is basically the “lake of fire” ultimate destination for evil beings. At the very least a place of torment for the unrighteous.

I am now contemplating that this thinking is incorrect and when we die we ALL go to Sheol. The righteous to a good section (paradise, Abrahams bosom etc) and the unrighteous to a place of torment.

There to await resurrection & Judgment (I won’t go into all the variations on this aspect and the millennium etc.)

Anyhow, just an intro to the subject if anyone wants to discuss it.

[Jezz]

Recent threads have been on; how protestants don’t adhere to the Apostles creed because of its mention that Jesus went to hell. Also, another about the thief on the cross and how he could be in paradise with Christ that day, if Christ were not going to heaven for 3 days.

Anyhow to my understanding Sheol (Hebrew) and Hades (Greek) are basically the same and are sometimes translated to hell. However, in our modern mindset we often assume that hell is basically the “lake of fire” ultimate destination for evil beings. At the very least a place of torment for the unrighteous.

I am now contemplating that this thinking is incorrect and when we die we ALL go to Sheol. The righteous to a good section (paradise, Abrahams bosom etc) and the unrighteous to a place of torment.

There to await resurrection & Judgment (I won’t go into all the variations on this aspect and the millennium etc.)

Anyhow, just an intro to the subject if anyone wants to discuss it.
Yes, I think that you are right. Hades is basically the Greek word for the Hebrew Sheol - it is the place of the dead. Not just the unrighteous dead, but the righteous also. The Orthodox Church teaches something very similar to this.

There is a famous icon in Orthodoxy depicting this event, called "The Descent into Hades", which depicts our Lord Jesus Christ descending into Hades to rescue those who were trapped there. There are various different depictions of this event, because obviously no one still here with us actually saw this event to tell us what it looked like. Here (http://www.holyghost-oca.org/iconpages/icons/descentintohades.htm) is one depiction, here (http://home.it.net.au/~jgrapsas/pages/Descent.htm) is another. Note that the latter has people like Adam and Eve, Abel, and St John the Baptist.

St John of Damascus also devoted a chapter to this in his "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" (~ AD 780). You can find it here (http://www.orthodox.net/fathers/exactiii.html#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_XXIX):

The soul when it was deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness and shadow of death: in order that just as He brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, and of release to the prisoners, and of sight to the blind, and became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and to those who did not believe a reproach of their unbelief, so He might become the same to those in Hades: That every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth. And thus after He had freed those who had been bound for ages, straightway He rose again from the dead, shewing us the way of resurrection.

There is also an excellent and more detailed discussion about this event as seen from an Orthodox perspective here (http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/11/1/5.aspx) by his Grace Bishop Hilarion where he contrasts it to the traditional Roman Catholic view (which was inherited by the majority of Protestantism).

Has this anything to do with those who died outside Christian faith after the descent of Christ into Hades? No, if we accept the Western teaching that the descent into Hades was a ‘one-time’ event and that the recollection of Christ did not survive in hell. Yes, if we proceed from the assumption that after Christ hell was no longer like the Old Testament sheol, but it became a place of the divine presence. In addition, as Archpriest Serge Bulgakov writes, ‘all events in the life of Christ, which happen in time, have timeless, abiding significance. Therefore, the so-called ‘preaching in hell’, which is the faith of the Church, is a revelation of Christ to those who in their earthly life could not see or know Christ. There are no grounds for limiting this event… to the Old Testament saints alone, as Catholic theology does. Rather, the power of this preaching should be extended to all time for those who during their life on earth did not and could not know Christ but meet Him in the afterlife.

[Heartablaze]

In my church, it has always been the conception that the Jews were wrong or at least unenlightened about the afterlife, and could only see to the grave- Sheol. Now I am wondering if what you are thinking is not right, tim- it sounds plausible. All that stuff in 1 Peter 3:18-20 always confused me.
In the end, though, does it make any different whether the paradise that we go to when we die (?) is 'in the sky' or ' in the grave?' Or do we really stay in the grave, with no consciousness, etc.? What about all of those near-death experiences? What about 'to be away from the body is to be with the Lord?'

[The Curtmudgeon]

Recent threads have been on; how protestants don’t adhere to the Apostles creed because of its mention that Jesus went to hell. Also, another about the thief on the cross and how he could be in paradise with Christ that day, if Christ were not going to heaven for 3 days.

Anyhow to my understanding Sheol (Hebrew) and Hades (Greek) are basically the same and are sometimes translated to hell. However, in our modern mindset we often assume that hell is basically the “lake of fire” ultimate destination for evil beings. At the very least a place of torment for the unrighteous.

I am now contemplating that this thinking is incorrect and when we die we ALL go to Sheol. The righteous to a good section (paradise, Abrahams bosom etc) and the unrighteous to a place of torment.

There to await resurrection & Judgment (I won’t go into all the variations on this aspect and the millennium etc.)

Anyhow, just an intro to the subject if anyone wants to discuss it.

From our FWIW Department:

The belief about Death that I've been raised in, and see good Biblical support for, makes a distinction that you're not seeing, Tim: Things changed at the Resurrection. That is to say, people who died before Christ's Resurrection experienced death in one manner, while we who die after that point in time experience it differently. Therefore, our experience is not that of the thief on the cross, f'rinstance.

Prior to the first Easter Sunday, the souls of all who died went to Sheol (in the Hebrew) aka Hades (in the Greek). In this place, the souls of the righteous dead were separated from the unrighteous dead, as Jesus described in His parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (that is, "Abraham's Bosom" is a name for the part of Sheol/Hades reserved for the righteous): the two areas were close enough for those in them to see the other side, but separated by a great gulf which could not be crossed. Also, the two sides of Sheol/Hades were experienced differently: the righteous, such as Lazarus, experienced rest and contentment, while the unrighteous, such as the rich man, experienced pain and torment. When Jesus told the thief on the cross, "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise" He was speaking of this "good" side of Sheol/Hades; that is, Paradise = Abraham's Bosom.

When Jesus died on the cross, He too went to Paradise. But He is more than a mere mortal, He is God Incarnate and Sheol/Hades had no power over Him. The verse "He took captivity captive" does not refer, primarily, to a liberation of those dead who were in Paradise, but rather to the effect that He has turned the tables on Sheol/Hades, "Death and the Grave", and made them into His captives rather than allowing them to continue to hold the souls of the righteous in captivity. But the effect is the same: those righteous dead in Paradise were liberated from there to join with the Risen Christ in Heaven, where He now stands beside the throne of His Father. Thus, when we who are now His die, our souls do not go to Sheol/Hades, but rather are instantly in the presence of the Lord in Heaven, to await physical resurrection of our bodies.

Those who continue in unrighteousness and die apart from the Lord do still go to Sheol/Hades to await their "resurrection unto Judgment." The common picture of Hell as the Lake of Fire and Brimstone is a picture of the future judgment: nobody is sent there yet, until the defeat of the Anti-Christ and his False Prophet (yes, I'm a PreTrib PreMill, if you didn't already know that). Satan will not be in Hell until after the end of the Millennial Kingdom, then the dead in Sheol/Hades will be raised and judged at God's White Throne; Death and the Grave will themselves be cast into the Lake of Fire (as difficult as that is for us to take in, given that we don't see Death or the Grave as personas usually) along with all the unrighteous dead that are in them.

So there is no longer any Paradise or Abraham's Bosom; instead we who are Christians go to be with the Lord, and since He is declared to be beside His Father's throne now, that is where we go.

The (just one man's tuppence-ha'penny, as usual) Curtmudgeon

[gharfish]

What a great post, Curtmudgeon ! I say so because I think you have interpreted and put it together correctly. I say you are well studied on the subject, and that is good because it is an important one for Christians, and "non," to understand. So thank you for sharing this information. If it were mine to do, I'd POTD it so fast it would spin heads !

[auggybendoggy]

Would Moses and Elijah have get out of Shoel free passes?

Bit akward is it? Jesus did not die nor resurrect and yet Ol Mo and Elijah seem to have escaped the very thing that ONLY JESUS escapes??? Can anyone say TRANSFIGURATION.

Sounds a bit to rigid. Taking metaphors and parables and applying them to a actual literal reading seems problematic. What if in context the story of the Rich man and Laz have nothing to do with if people are in sheol. It neither seems that it is about whether it's not that hot in shoel.

I just don't buy the literal interpretations.

Aug

[timspong]

Would Moses and Elijah have get out of Shoel free passes?

Bit akward is it? Jesus did not die nor resurrect and yet Ol Mo and Elijah seem to have escaped the very thing that ONLY JESUS escapes??? Can anyone say TRANSFIGURATION.

Sounds a bit to rigid. Taking metaphors and parables and applying them to a actual literal reading seems problematic. What if in context the story of the Rich man and Laz have nothing to do with if people are in sheol. It neither seems that it is about whether it's not that hot in shoel.

I just don't buy the literal interpretations.

Aug

Well you have to be careful here as both Elijah and Moses are special cases. Elijah didn't actually die and in Jude 9, the archangel Michael contended with the devil over the body of moses. Not sure of the significance but it would dissuade me from using them as a norm in the formulation of a systematic theology of hell.

What I find more interesting are the saints under the altar in rev 6.9. I am wondering if they could be the same saints as described in Mt 27.

Mt 27:52-53
The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,
and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

[auggybendoggy]

Tim,
I'm not arguing for systematic theology of hell at all, but rather stating, I don't believe Laz and the rich man are stated by jesus as scientific proofs of what hell and sheol and heat really are.
Im saying people should be careful in using parables, metaphores and analogies to build literal conclusions of the after life. Of course I believe in the afterlife and I believe there is shoel and paradise.

I have a hard time with many of these literal viewpoints as they seem to take what is metaphors (cut to pieces, weeping, gnashing of teeth, fire, darkness) and argue that the sun is a perfect place to call hell? (missler makeing statement that the middle of the earth could be hell). Far too literal for me : )

I do find in pincipal though that it is a good question. Even if the metarphors are just that, they do imply a principal that God deals with sin and judges in righteousness.

On ol Mo and Eli, it does stand to reason that God (as stated above by tim) raised people from the dead (laz and many others) and where were they during that time? Perhaps there is a "get our of sheol free card". God does as he pleases and if he uses them for that purpose.

One interesting note on Laz and the rich man is that the chasm is fixed that "THOSE WHO ARE HERE AND WANT TO GO TO THE HOT SIDE" CANNOT (my paraphrase).

aug