12. Moses and the prophets were indeed divinely inspired on every point concerning which they wrote; but on the point respecting which we seek light, they have the special endorsement of our Lord. We may therefore confide in their teaching concerning hades, or sheol, assured that the great facts revealed through them by the Spirit of God, will be found in divine harmony with the teachings of Christ and the apostles.
13. The texts quoted above, relating to hades, or sheol, reveal to us many important facts. We learn that sheol is the common receptacle of the dead, whether they are righteous or wicked. Thus Jacob expressed his faith in what should be his state in death when he said, “I will go down into sheol unto my son mourning.” Gen. 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31. Korah and his company went down into sheol.Num. 16:30, 33. Joab went down into sheol. 1 Kings 2:6, 9. Job was to be hid in sheol, and wait there till the resurrection. Job 14:13; 17:13. All the wicked go into sheol. Ps. 9:17; 31:17; 49:14. All mankind go there. Ps. 89:48; Eccl. 9:10.
14. Sheol, or hades, receives the whole man at death. Jacob expected to go down with his gray hairs to sheol. Gen. 42:38. Korah, Dathan and Abiram, went into sheol bodily. Num. 16:30, 33. The soul of the Saviour left sheol at his resurrection. Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, 31. The psalmist, being restored from dangerous sickness, testified that his soul was saved from going into sheol. Thus he says, “O Lord, my God, I cried unto thee and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave [Hebrew, sheol]; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.” Ps. 30:2, 3; see also 86:13; Prov. 23:14. He also shows that all men must die, and that no man can deliver his soul from sheol. Ps. 89:48.
15. The sorrows of hell, three times mentioned by the psalmist, are, as shown by the connection, the pangs which precede or lead to death. 2 Sam. 22:5–7; Ps. 18:4–6; 116:1–9. They are, in each case, experienced by the righteous. The cruelty of sheol is the remorseless power with which it swallows up all mankind. Cant. 8:6; Ps. 89:48.
16. Those who go down to sheol must remain there till their resurrection. At the coming of Christ all the righteous are delivered from sheol. All the living wicked are then “turned into sheol,” and for one thousand years sheol holds all wicked men in its dread embrace. Then death and sheol, or hades, deliver up the wicked dead, and the judgment is executed upon them in the lake of fire. Compare Job 7:9, 10; 14:12–14; 17:13; 19:25–27; Rev. 20:4–6; 1 Cor. 15:51–55; Ps. 9:17; Rev. 20:11–15.
17. Sheol, the invisible place or state of the dead, is IN THE EARTH BENEATH. Though it is rendered grave thirty-one times, it is not the word usually so rendered in the Old Testament; for it embraces the interior of the earth as the region of the dead and the place of every grave. Eze. 32:18–32. All the passages which speak of the location of sheol, or hades, represent it as beneath. It is always in the interior of the earth; sometimes it is in the nether parts of the earth. Num. 16:30, 33; Ps. 141:7; Isa. 5:14; 14:9–20; Eze. 31:15–18; 32:18–32. Referring to the fire now burning, in the heart of the earth, which shall at the last day swallow up the earth in its fiery gulf, Moses represents the Almighty as saying, “For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn into the lowest sheol, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” Deut. 32:22. Jonah went down into sheol when, in the belly of the whale, he descended into the depths of the mighty waters, where none but dead men had ever been. Jonah 2:2. Korah and his company went into sheol alive; that is, the earth swallowed them up while yet alive. Num. 16:18.
18. The righteous do not praise God in sheol. Thus David testifies: “In death there is no remembrance of thee; in sheol who shall give thee thanks?” Ps. 6:5. And Hezekiah, when delivered from death in answer to prayer, expresses the same great truth: “I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of sheol; I am deprived of the residue of my years. * Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” Isa. 38:10–19; Ps. 115:17; 146:1–4. 19. The wicked in sheol are silent in death. Thus David prays: “Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in sheol.” Ps. 31:17. See also 1 Sam. 2:9; Ps. 115:17, last clause.
20. Sheol is a place of silence, secrecy, sleep, rest, darkness, corruption and worms. “So man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in sheol, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.” Job 14:12–15. “If I wait, sheol is mine house; I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, thou art my father; to the worm, thou art my mother, and my sister. And where is now my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of sheol, when our rest together is in the dust.” Job 17:13–16; 4:11–19; Ps. 88:10–12.
21. There is no knowledge in sheol. Thus writes the wise man, the Spirit of inspiration bearing testimony through him: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in sheol, whither thou goest.” Eccl. 9:10.
22. Such are the great facts concerning sheol, or hades, as revealed to us in the books of “Moses and the prophets.” Yet we have the following cases in these same writings in which the dead in sheol, in the nether parts of the earth, converse together, and are comforted or taunted by each other, or in which they weep bitterly, refusing comfort.
The case of the king of Babylon is a noted instance of this. When he is overthrown, and goes down to sheol, the dead (for sheol has no others in its dark abode) are stirred up to meet him. The kings that had been conquered and destroyed by the king of Babylon in the days of his prosperity now rise up from their thrones in that dark abode, and mock him with feigned obeisance as in life they had rendered real homage. Now they taunt him, saying, “Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?” Those that see him shall narrowly look upon him, saying, “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” Isa. 14:9–20.
23. Pharaoh and his army, slaughtered in battle with the king of Babylon, are set forth in the same manner. The slain upon the field of battle being buried indiscriminately, and friend and foe cast down together into pits, into the “nether parts of the earth,” into sheol, “the strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of sheol.” And this sheol, in the nether parts of the earth, full of the dead, is contrasted with “the land of the living.” These slaughtered soldiers went down to sheol with their weapons of war, and their swords they “laid under their heads.” Pharaoh, lying among them, and seeing the multitude of his enemies that were slain, is “comforted” at the sight. See this remarkable prophecy, Eze. 32:17–32; 31:15–18.
24. Perhaps the case of Rachel is even more remarkable than these. Long ages after her decease and entrance into sheol a dreadful slaughter of her posterity takes place. Upon this, Rachel breaks forth into lamentation and bitter weeping, and refuses to be comforted, because her children are not. Then the Lord says to her, “Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord.” Jer. 31:16; Matt. 2:17, 18; Gen. 35:18–20.
25. That Rachel did literally weep and shed bitter tears at the murder of her children nearly two thousand years after her entrance into sheol, no one will assert. Nor will it be maintained that the slaughtered Egyptians and Chaldeans lying in sheol with their swords under their heads were able to converse together in the nether parts of the earth; and that one was literally “comforted,” or the other literally “ashamed.” Equally difficult is it to believe that the kings who had been overthrown by the king of Babylon were literally seated on thrones in sheol, deep in the earth, and that when he was cast down to sheol they arose from their thrones and mocked him, declaring that he was now become weak as they. Please compare the following texts on the king of Babylon: Jer. 51:39, 57; Dan. 5:1–4, 30; Isa. 14:4–30.
26. Taking our leave of “Moses and the prophets,” whose testimony on this subject has the direct endorsement of our Lord, let us now return to the case of Dives and Lazarus. Luke 16:19–31. Lazarus lived in the deepest poverty; too helpless to walk, or even to stand, he was laid at the rich man’s gate; he had no other food than the crumbs, perhaps grudgingly bestowed, from the table of the rich man; and no other nurses than the dogs which licked his sores. In process of time, death comes to his relief; but his burial is not mentioned, though that of the rich man who died soon after, is distinctly named. It is likely that the dead beggar, covered with sores, was disposed of with as little trouble as possible; in the sight of man, he had the burial of a dog; but this poor man, forsaken of all earthly friends, and apparently unnoticed of Heaven, had, unseen to mortal eye, such a burial as the wealth of the whole world could not command. The angels of God took part as his bearers to that quiet resting place from which, by-and-by, when hades gives up the righteous dead, at the sound of the last trumpet, they shall take him up through the air, to meet his triumphant Redeemer. Till that time, we leave him asleep in Jesus, resting in hope, with Abraham the father of the faithful, and all the ancient worthies who have not yet received the promises. Heb. 11:8–16, 39, 40.
27. The rich man lived in luxury, faring sumptuously every day. To the eye of all beholders, his lot was to be envied, and that of the beggar to be despised. But he dies also, and of him it is recorded that he was buried. All that wealth could purchase, all that pride could exhibit of earthly pomp and grandeur, were, no doubt, displayed at his funeral. But there were no angels of God to participate in it. He had lived for himself, neglecting the great preparation for the future. He goes down to hades a lost man, there to wait until the resurrection to damnation. As the Douay Bible reads, “He was buried in hell,” i. e., in hades, or sheol. There he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then, as though calling to mind the littleness of the favors he had bestowed on Lazarus, he asks a favor at the hands of the despised beggar—the smallest indeed that he could ask—that Lazarus should dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. This being denied, he asks that Lazarus may be sent to warn his brethren. And this also was refused, because they had Moses and the prophets whose testimony was sufficient.
28. This scene transpires in hades, or sheol, which, as we have seen, is in the nether parts of the earth. The place is one of darkness and silence, where there is neither wisdom nor knowledge. It is the place of the dead, and those who are therein are called “the congregation of the dead.” Prov. 21:16. In the utter darkness of hades, how can men see each other? “In the land of forgetfulness,” how can they remember the events of their past lives? In a place where there is no knowledge, how could Dives know Abraham, whom he had never seen? Where there is no work, nor device, how could he devise a plan to warn his wicked brethren? And in hades, where there is no wisdom, how could Abraham give such wise answers? In hades, where the wicked are silent in death, how could Dives converse? As the righteous cannot praise God in hades, and do not even remember his name, how does it happen that they can so well understand and converse on everything else?
29. We answer these questions precisely as we do those which arise from the testimony of “Moses and the prophets,” to which we are in this parable referred. When Rachel, long dead, is represented as shedding tears and lamenting the murder of her children; when the mighty dead converse with Pharaoh in hades, and he is “comforted” with what he sees in the nether parts of the earth; and when the king of Babylon is mocked by dead kings who rise up from their thrones in hades and taunt him with his overthrow; when we read all this of that place where all is darkness, silence, secrecy, and death—a place within the earth itself, and when we consider that this parable relates to this very place, and cites us to these very testimonies for information on the subject, it becomes evident that one common answer pertains to all these questions.
30. The dead are personified, and made to speak and act in reference to the facts of their respective cases as though they were alive. Why should not the Spirit of God do this when it has seen fit to personify every kind of inanimate thing? Thus the blood of Abel cries to God. Gen. 4. And thus in Job, the depth and the sea are made to speak, and even destruction and death are represented as saying that they have heard the fame of wisdom with their ears. Job 28:14–22. The stone of the sanctuary heard all the words of Israel. Josh. 24. The trees held an election and made speeches. Judges 9. The thistle proposes a matrimonial alliance with the cedar. 2 Kings 14; 2 Chron. 25. All the trees sing out at the presence of God. 1 Chron. 16. The stone cries out of the wall, and the beam answers it. Hab. 2. The hire of the laborers, kept back by fraud, cries to God. James 5. Dead Abel yet speaketh. Heb. 11. The souls under the altar, slain for their testimony, and who do not live till the first resurrection, cry to God for vengeance. Rev. 6:9, 10. And, finally, death and hades are both personified—the one riding a pale horse, the other following, and both cutting down mankind. And this personification is still further carried out, when both, as though living enemies, are at last cast into the fire of gehenna. Rev. 6:8; 20:14; 1 Cor. 15; Hosea 13:14.
31. The apostle Paul has given us the key to all this, when he says of God that he “quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Rom. 4:17. And our Lord, in that remarkable discussion with the Sadducees, in which he proved the resurrection of the dead by the fact that God spoke of dead Abraham as though he were alive, gives us this same key, thus: “For all live unto him.” Luke 20:38. Abraham, though dead, is spoken of as alive, because in the purpose of God he is to live again.
32. By this parable our Lord illustrates several great truths: 1. The folly and vanity of riches. 2. The worth of true piety, though attended by the deepest poverty. 3. The importance of that great lesson inculcated in the previous parable, to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. Luke 16:9; 1 Tim. 6:17–19. The rich man had neglected this, wasting all on himself, though wretched, suffering Lazarus lay at his gate. The folly of this criminal neglect is shown in that part of this parable in which the rich man in his distress, as if remembering the past, is represented as asking of Lazarus that water that could be brought on the tip of his finger, and even this is denied. 4. The certainty of future recompense, and the great contrast that it will make with the present state of things. 5. The sufficiency of the Scriptures to instruct and warn mankind. 6. But to make this text teach that the righteous dead are now recompensed, would be to array a parable against our Lord’s plain statement that the recompense of the righteous is at the resurrection of the just. Luke 14:14. 7. Or, to make the passage teach that the wicked dead are now in the lake of fire, is to make one of the Saviour’s parables conflict in its teaching with his own grand description of the final judgment, in which the wicked enter the everlasting fire at the dreadful mandate, “Depart from me, ye cursed.” Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:11–15.
33. Lazarus died a beggar. But he rests in hope, an heir to the inheritance promised Abraham. Eternal life and endless felicity are his, and by personification it is said that he is “comforted.” Dives lives in the greatest splendor, and dies an impenitent man. The lake of fire is to be his portion. By personification, he is represented as in it already. This is in accordance with the teaching of Paul, when he says of God that he calleth things that be not as though they were. That is, God speaks of things that exist only in his purpose just as though they had a present existence; because they shall surely exist; even as he called Abraham the father of many nations, when as yet he had no son. Gen. 17; Rom. 4:16, 17.
This is the more clearly seen when we consider that to Lazarus, in the silence of hades, there will not be a moment between his death, at the gate of the rich man, and his resurrection to eternal life, and not a moment to the rich man between the closing of his eyes in death, and his opening them in the resurrection to damnation.
34. That we have done right in hearing the testimony of “Moses and the prophets” on this subject, we have the authority of the parable itself to show. And we have this further evidence of the truth of this exposition that, without doing violence to a single text, we have a divine harmony on the subject of the dead in hades, in all that is said by Moses and the prophets and by Christ and the apostles.
That those who conversed together are not disembodied spirits, but personified dead men, is further proved by the following facts: 1. Not one word is said of the spirit of any person named. 2. This conversation takes place in hades, which the sacred writers affirm to be in the depths of the earth. 3. The persons named are men that had lived, the one clothed in purple, the other covered with sores, and both were then dead. But these dead men have bodily organs, as eyes, fingers, tongues, etc. But the truth on this point is settled by the fact that Lazarus could only return to warn the rich man’s brethren by being raised from the dead. “Neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead”—Gr., ean tis ek nekron anaste. It was not whether the spirit of Lazarus should descend from the third Heaven, but whether Lazarus himself should be raised from among the dead ones. This shows that the conversation did not relate to the coming back of disembodied spirits; and in fact that they were not disembodied spirits that there conversed.
The parable of Dives and Lazarus does not therefore teach the present punishment of the wicked dead. And as there is nothing else on which to rest the doctrine, it must be given up as having no foundation in the Bible. The testimony shows that the wicked dead are asleep in sheol, where they await the resurrection to damnation. The following texts show that the resurrection and judgment of the wicked take place before they are punished; a doctrine in the highest degree reasonable, and sustained by many plain testimonies.
1. “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of Judgment to be punished.” 2 Pet. 2:9. The day of Judgment must arrive before the retribution of the ungodly.
2. “The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Pet. 3:7. The perdition of ungodly men comes at the Judgment.
3. “The wicked is RESERVED to the day of destruction; they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.” Job 21:30. The next scripture will explain this. 4. “Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28, 29.
5. The wicked are first raised and judged, then afterward cast into the lake of fire. Rev. 20:11–15.
6. Vengeance is taken upon all the ungodly together when the Lord comes with his saints. Jude 14, 15.
7. The wicked are cast into the furnace of fire at the end, and not before. Matt. 13:30, 39–43, 49, 50.
8. The burning day is the time when the wicked meet their fate. Mal. 4; Ps. 21:9.
9. The wrath of God waits till the day of wrath. Rom. 2:5–9.
10. Tribulation to the ungodly comes in connection with the advent of the Saviour. 2 Thess. 1.
11. The wicked dead are not punished till after the seventh trumpet. Rev. 11:15, 18.
12. The Judge says, “Depart from me, ye cursed,” and then, for the first time, the ungodly enter the furnace of fire. Matt. 25:41.