PARADISE by J. O. Corliss

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 13, 1879

PARADISE

By J. O. Corliss

Where is paradise? and what does the Bible teach concerning it? Is it an intermediate state, in which the righteous rest between death and the resurrection? Though some, influenced by a sectarian bias, may answer the last of these questions in the affirmative, yet there are those who, upon what seems to them satisfactory grounds, arrive at different conclusions.

Our principal source of information on this point is the Bible; and by consulting this book in the original Greek and Hebrew, with the lexicons of these languages, the following prominent facts are learned: 1. That all the dead go to one place, Gen. 3:19; Eccl. 3:20; Job. 14:10-12; 2. That this receptacle for the dead is expressed by the word sheol in the Hebrew and hades in the Greek, and these words are properly translated grave, hell, or pit; we also learn that hades is located under the earth, Eze. 31:15-18; 3. That the entire man goes there, Gen. 37:35; Ps. 30:3; 89:48; Acts. 2:27, 31; 4. That it is a place of secrecy and silence, where there is no device, wisdom, or knowledge, Job. 3:11-19; Ps. 146:3, 4; Eccl. 9:4-6, 10; 5. That paradise is derived from the Greek word paradise, and has no meaning in common with hades, or its corresponding word in the Hebrew; 6. That it is located in Heaven, before the throne of God; compare 2 Cor. 12:2, 4 with Rev. 2:7 and 22:1, 2; 7. That it is a place where the song of redemption is sung by the righteous, who dwell therein forever. Rev. 4:6; 15:2, 3; 22:5.

From the foregoing we conclude that paradise is a place of life, joy, peace, and perfect bliss, the dwelling-place of God, and the future home of the saints; and that it is in wide contrast with hades, a place of profound silence and perfect unconsciousness, the resting-place of man in death, from which he can only be rescued by a resurrection.

J. O. Corliss.