with stud­ies on Hades, Par­adise, Heaven and the Pit

by David Cox
[D04] v1 ©2005 www.davidcox.com.mx/tracts
You may freely repro­duce this tract for non-profit use.

This is another tract on heaven and hell get­ting into more details that D03. Seol and Hades are explained show­ing that hell is presently in the cen­ter of the earth, and then it explains the con­cepts of “the pit”, the abysm, and hell. Some of the tor­tures of hell are reviewed. Tar­tars is the place of the demons, and the final­ity of death is estab­lished. Then future events are explained show­ing heaven as the ulti­mate abode of plea­sure for the saints, dwelling with God there. Finally some com­ments on Jesus’ pres­ence between his death and resurrection.

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The themes of pun­ish­ment and judg­ment are men­tioned some 234 times in 264 chap­ters of the NT. It is inter­est­ing that we know more about hell through the teach­ing of Jesus Christ than any other per­son or source. It occu­pied a very impor­tant place in the mind of Christ, and he warned those who would lis­ten so that they would avoid that place and the pun­ish­ment that is there.

“Seol” and “Hades”

The Bible describes Seol as the place of “dark­ness and shadow of death” Job 10:21. While death sep­a­rates the per­son from the world of the liv­ing, for the saved this is a reunion with the departed friends (Gen. 15:15; 25:8; 35:29; 37:35; 49:33; Num. 20:24, 28; 31:2; Deu 32:50; 34:5; 2Sam 12:23). The O.T. speaks of “Seol” as “the place of the dead,” and never uses this word for “the grave” where the decom­pos­ing bod­ies nor­mally are (see Num. 16 where the excep­tion is the rebel­lion of Korah who went straight to Seol with their bod­ies). “Seol” means “demand” in Hebrew, and prob­a­bly comes from the con­cept that it is the place that demands the pres­ence of every human being with­out excep­tion (Hebrews 9:27). Nobody can escape the power of death. “Hades” comes from the com­bi­na­tion of the words “no” and “seen”. Seol and Hades are the same place, and it is a tem­po­rary place.

Before the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus, there were two types of peo­ple in Seol, the redeemed and the unsaved. There are three com­part­ments there (Proverbs 7:27 “the cham­bers of death”). These places were the Par­adise (for the saved), the pit or hell (for the unsaved), and Tar­tars (for the demons).

The con­cept of a pit or abysm prob­a­bly comes from or has to do with a sen­sa­tion of insta­bil­ity (falling) in that place, which is usu­ally linked with a per­son being out of con­trol (pass­ing out).

“Hades” is exclu­sively a NT word, which cor­re­sponds to the O.T. “Seol”. The Sep­tu­agint (the OT trans­lated into Greek before the time of Christ) uses the Greek Hades for the Hebrew Seol. Hades is a dis­tinct word from “death.”

The Greeks in their mythol­ogy divided Hades into two places, the Ely­sium, or the place of the good, and the Tar­tars, the place of pun­ish­ment for the wicked. We note that this is very close to what Jesus taught in the story of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19–31) only Jesus used the terms “Abraham’s bosom” (a place of plea­sure) and “Hades” (a place of torment).

The Rebel­lion of Korah – In Num. 16:30, 33 the Bible com­ments about the rebels of Korah, “the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swal­low them up, with all that apper­tain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit… They went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they per­ished.” From this nar­ra­tive, we under­stand that Seol is not just death (the end of life), but a con­tin­ued phys­i­cal exis­tence where for some there is extreme suf­fer­ing (Prov 15:24). With­out a doubt, the Bible presents the place as a real, phys­i­cal place of pun­ish­ment and tor­ture.

Before the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ, the saved went to Seol after death (Gen 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31), to the cham­ber called Par­adise (Luke 23:43) or also called Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:22). We know that Jacob was a believer, but we see Jacob under­stood that he was going to Seol (Gen 37:25, 42:38; 44:29; 44:31) when he clearly waited in the sal­va­tion of God. David in Psa. 16:10 affirms his con­vic­tion that God would not leave his soul in Hades (Seol). In the book of Job, Job wanted to go to Seol to free him from the tor­ment Satan was afflict­ing him with in the earth (Job 7:9–10; 11:8; 14:12–13; 17:13, 16; 21:13; 24:19; 26:6).

Up until the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus, there were 3 cham­bers in Seol-Hades, which are called first Par­adise (the place of plea­sure for the saved), the other place is called Seol, the abysm, the pit, or hell in the N.T. (which is a place of tor­ment), and Tar­tars. We see that Jesus told the thief on the cross that that same day the both of them would be in Par­adise (Luke 23:43), and we know that after death, Jesus went to Seol-Hell (Acts 2:24, 27, 31; Psa 16:10; Acts 13:33–39). Thus we con­clude that Par­adise was at the point of Christ’s death, a part of Seol-Hades. After the res­ur­rec­tion, there were only the pris­ons of the demons (Tar­tars) and hell or Gehenna (the pit or abysm) in Hades-Seol, and at this point after Christ’s res­ur­rec­tion the con­cept of “Hades” became syn­ony­mous with the con­cept of the place of tor­ment.

From Luke 16 we see hell and the place of plea­sure very clearly and dis­tinctly, and both in the same place with a great chasm (grand space or gulf) between the two places imped­ing or mak­ing impos­si­ble that any­body passes from one place to the other.

The Pit, Abysm, Hell

The “pit” or the “abysm” is an OT word that rep­re­sents the place of tor­ment in Seol, and it is a real place that is scary. Jesus described it with fright­en­ing words so as to moti­vate every man to avoid it at any cost (Mat. 5:29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:33; Mark 9:43–47; Luke 12:5). This place was cre­ated by God as a pun­ish­ment for Satan and his demons (Mat 25:41; 2Pet 2:9), and God has had to enlarge it con­stantly at the death of every unsaved human (Isa. 5:14; Hab. 2:5). But hell is never full, and it is never sat­is­fied (Prov 27:20; 30:15–16).

Hell – Hell (Gehenna in Greek) comes from the words “val­ley” (Ge) and “Hin­nom” (a name), and it is a name of an actual val­ley in Israel that has very steep cliffs. In 2Chr. 33:6 the king Man­asseh made Israel pass their chil­dren through the fire (human sac­ri­fice) in wor­ship of the god Mol­ech. After­wards they utterly hated this place, and used it for unclean things, such as a trash dump, and as a repos­i­tory for dead ani­mals, and for the bod­ies of crim­i­nals or strangers. They con­stantly kept it lit in fire for purifi­ca­tion pur­poses (to kill the smell). The Bible always speaks of Gehenna as down or within the earth (Job 11:8; Luke 10:15), and it is even open to eyes of God (Job 26:6; Psa 139:8, 11; Pro 15:11; Heb 4:13). The wicked and those that for­get God are there (Psa 9:17), with the Phar­isees (Mat 23:33), and the hyp­ocrites (Mat 24:51). It is a place of judg­ment and con­dem­na­tion (Mat 23:33; 25:46).

The Tor­tures of Hell – are real and intense as we see in Luke 16:24. There is intense pain (Job 26:5). Peo­ple in hell have all their men­tal capac­i­ties and their phys­i­cal senses, and their con­sciences are active. It is a prison where one has no lib­er­ties but is under the restric­tions of that place (Psa 116:3; 118:5). There is no rest there (Rev 14:9–11). There is actual fire or flame there (Mat 5:22; Luke 16:23) but the burn­ing bod­ies are not con­sumed by this flame. It causes pain, but never ends or is fin­ished or stops. There is sul­fur which is prob­a­bly liq­uid fire of some sort (Isa 34:8–10; Rev 14:10; 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). Res­i­dents of hell gnash their teeth which is a con­se­quence of great pain and anguish (Mat. 13:42; Luke 16:24). The res­i­dents cry (Mat 13:42) which is also an expres­sion of pain or anguish. There are worms that eat the body for all eter­nity (Mark 9:47–48). Above all the place is unde­sired by those who live there (Mat 5:29–30; 18:8–9; Luke 16). More­over there appears to be lev­els or degrees of suf­fer­ing (Mat 10:15; 11:22, 24; Luke 10:12, 14; 20:47).

Tar­tars

The third cham­ber of Seol is the place of Tar­tars, and is only men­tioned in the Bible in 2Pet 2:4 where it says that the demons are now impris­oned wait­ing for judg­ment. In Rev 6:8 God will free them for a period in order that they will tor­ment human­ity before the final events of judgment.

The Final­ity of Death

Man is given a short period of time on the earth (Job 7:1–3), and in Hebrews 9:27, it says “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judg­ment:” Job 7:9–10 “he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, nei­ther shall his place know him any more.” God will only give the oppor­tu­nity of sal­va­tion before peo­ple die through accept­ing Christ, and death is final (Psa 9:17; Eze 31:16).

Future Events

These places are real, but they are only tem­po­rary places for these peo­ple until the judg­ment of God on them (Job 21:29–30), because in Rev­e­la­tion, God says that he will empty hell (Gehenna) before the throne of God in the Great White Throne Judg­ment so that He may judge the nations (Rev 20:13). We under­stand “nations” here to refer to the unsaved. After this judg­ment, God will throw the unsaved into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14; 21:8), and we under­stand this to be even worse than Seol, or hell is now. This future lake of fire will be a phys­i­cal tor­ment also and from there, every­one will enter into eter­nity for ever­more, time with­out end.

Heaven – the Place of Plea­sure and God

We remem­ber that life began with God in gar­den. The Per­sian word “par­adise” comes from the ori­en­tal kings who made a pro­tected and cul­ti­vated gar­den for their plea­sure. Solomon had some fab­u­lous gar­dens with abun­dant water, as a sym­bol of lux­ury and recre­ation in those arid lands. Isa 51:3 and Eze 36:35 speak of the future gar­den of Israel. Jesus used the con­cept of Par­adise in Luke 23:43 with the repen­tant thief on the cross as some­thing under­stood between them, and not need­ing expla­na­tion. Rev 2:7 says “To him that over­cometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the par­adise of God.” So in the end, the saved will be with God in “par­adise” again. Also those of the OT had a con­cept of the res­ur­rec­tion of the just and the wicked (Hos. 13:14; Isa 14:9), and so Seol was a tem­po­ral place until this judg­ment and res­ur­rec­tion. Jesus also taught the two res­ur­rec­tions, one for the saved (res­ur­rec­tion to eter­nal life) and one for the unsaved (res­ur­rec­tion to judg­ment and con­dem­na­tion) John 5:28–29.

Jesus between death and resurrection

In the OT, par­adise was a cham­ber of Seol where Jesus went to visit after his death on the cross (Eph 4:8–10; Acts 2:24, 27, 31; Psa 68:18; Isa 42:7) in order to preach to them (1Peter 3.19) or rather to explain to them the details of the sal­va­tion for which they waited. Also Jesus affirmed that the day that the thief died, he would be with Jesus in Par­adise (Luke 23:43), but in John 20:17, imme­di­ately after his res­ur­rec­tion, he says that he has not yet ascended to heaven to God the Father. So after the death of Jesus, he went to Par­adise, a cham­ber of Seol-Hades, and later car­ried all the saints of that cham­ber with him from Par­adise to heaven. Also when Jesus rose from the dead, many O.T. saints were res­ur­rected with him, and walked the earth Mat. 27:52–53.

Later Paul men­tions clearly that he “went up” into the third heaven, to par­adise (2Cor 12:2–4). The first heaven is the earth’s atmos­phere; the sec­ond is where the sun and stars are; and the third heaven is where God and His angels live. After the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus, the Bible rep­re­sents Chris­tians dying and going directly to be with God in heaven (Phil 1:23 “be with Christ” 2 Cor 5:6–8 “be present with the Lord” Acts 7:59).