STUDYING HADES (1)

LUKE 22-31

…22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

BEFORE the death and resurrection of Christ, the place where all human spirits and souls went after death was known in the Old Testament by the word SHEOL and in the New Testament by the word HADES. 

Both of these words relate to “the unseen state” or the place where the spirit and the souls of the dead go between the time of their physical body’s death and the resurrection of their new body. Literally, the words Sheol and Hades mean “a hollow subterranean place.” Contrary to popular belief, neither of these words refer to the final place of punishment. The name for that place is Gehenna or the Lake of Fire. We are talking about a totally different place.

Sheol or Hades is located in the heart of the earth, and is made up of two chambers. One chamber in known as Paradise or Abraham’s bosom. This is where the spirits and souls of the righteous went upon their death. David, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Ruth, Boaz, Gideon, Job, all of these famous righteous people of the Old Testament would have gone to the paradise chamber of sheol. By the description given here in Luke 16 it appears that it was a place of rest and comfort. But it was not heaven.                     

                                            ….to be cont’d