Hi Everyone,  

Yippee Yahoo! It is already December! And today is the 1st Wednesday in December.  

If you recall, once a month, I want you to ask your questions about the Bible. Anything in the Good Book is open for discussion. This is your monthly opportunity to possibly have some remaining issues settled in your brain once and for all.  

Perhaps you have a moral dilemma that would benefit from some scriptural counsel. Perhaps you never really understood some concept you read a while ago and would like some clarification. Maybe you want some advice on how to foment peace in your life.  

Really… anything. I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, so I’ll give it to you straight! (all in love of course)  

Peace,
Jim

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what is Sheol?  and what about Psalm 139:7-8.  Is it actually God Himself pouring out His wrath against sin on those in hell?

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Thanks so much for your questions! I had a feeling you’d be asking me questions this time around 😉 I am more than delighted to attempt to make the afterlife more clear… for you and everyone else.

Let me preface by saying that I wondered about what happens to us when we die in times past and tried to get some grasp of it. This is my understanding from how I read the scriptures…

Okay then, Sheol is a Hebrew word meaning a hollow (like Sleepy Hollow), a pit, an underground place, a grave and other such places. Sheol is located downward. Sheol speaks of depths. Sheol is inescapable once someone arrives there. These are all descriptions of death.

When someone dies, the traditional manner was/ is to take that person’s body and bury it in the ground. The grave is down, under the earth. The body is placed into a pit. That lifeless body can never get back to life (on its own), it is forever committed to the afterlife. A nice way to talk about such a person’s dead body in the grave is to say they are sleeping.

All people will die, thus all people will enter into the afterlife. Once we die, we are dead and cannot come back to life (on our own). Our body decays and returns to dust… ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

All this is to say that Sheol speaks to the the realm of the dead. With this brief imagery, let’s look to scripture….

When Jacob thought his favorite son Joseph was dead, notice what he said…

Genesis 37:35
All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him (Jacob), but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.

Later, during the Jew’s wilderness wanderings, notice what happened to the people who belonged to Korah…

Numbers 16:33
So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.

Samuel’s mother Hannah gives us some clues to understanding the realm of the dead…

1st Samuel 2:6
The Lord kills and brings to life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.

Look at King David’s dying instructions concerning Abner to his son Solomon…

1st Kings 2:6
Act therefore according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace.

Look where suffering Job wanted go to escape his misery…

Job 14:13
Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, that You would conceal me until Your wrath be past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

See here how the realm of the dead is described…

Proverbs 7:27
Her (Adulteress) house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

Behold how angry God is at apostate Israel, they cannot escape…

Amos 9:2
“If they dig into Sheol, from there shall My hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.

The above verses are all taken from the Old Testament, which was mostly written in Hebrew. Now, considering the New Testament was written in Greek, we must use the Greek equivalent word for the Hebrew word Sheol… and that is “Hades”. Hades likewise refers to death, the underworld, the lower regions… the realm of the dead.

So then, let’s survey the NT… Our Lord Christ was angry at the unbelieving city of Capernaum, and pronounced this judgment…

Matthew 11:23
And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

Lovable Peter was preaching to the Jews and explained to them how King David knew Jesus would be resurrected from the dead… from the realm of death…

Acts 2:31
He (David) foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

“Abandoned” can imply you were there, but not left to remain there. Now look closer at when Christ was dead, before He was resurrected on the 3rd day. Peter helps us again…

1st Peter 3:19-20
in which He (Jesus) went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

All these verses refer to a place, a realm, a reality that exists after life, when someone dies. I’ve come to believe that Sheol and Hades simply refer to the place of death. It is the underworld. When we die, we will enter into the realm of the dead too. If Jacob and Job wanted to go there, if Jesus was there for just a little while, if both King David and Solomon spoke of it, etc., then it must be a reality!

I know you may be wondering about this…

Luke 23:43
And he (Jesus) said to him (the criminal), “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

And you may also be wondering about this…

2nd Corinthians 5:8
Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 

This apparent contradiction is solved when you keep in mind that our spirit separates from our body upon death. Our body is left to decompose and sees corruption (in the words of Acts).

And here is the big distinction concerning disembodied spirits:

The redeemed of Christ, (prior to His coming again), they live on in spirit form with Christ in paradise though their bodies remain. The condemned, they live on in spirit form too, but remain in Sheol/ Hades somehow, (this is for the Lord to know). To help me grasp this, I like to think of death row… the condemned are held prisoner in Sheol until the final White Throne Judgment mentioned in Revelation 20:11…

Perhaps this is where Catholics get the idea of purgatory. But there is no working off of sins on death row! Physical death seals one’s fate. Getting right with God must happen on this side of life!

To close the loop, Sheol/ Hades/ Death shall see their end too…

Revelation 20:14
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

Second death?? The first death is physical death, the second death is spiritual and eternal death and torment in the Lake of Fire. Whoa!

Matt, you also asked about Psalm 139:7-8 regarding God’s wrath…

Psalm 139:7-8
Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!

I believe David is expressing awe and wonder for God’s omniscience/ omnipresence in the context of verses 14 & 18.

The potential confusion arises when Sheol is translated as Hell. Sheol is as good as Hell for most people, but God’s own shan’t be considered to reside in Hell, right? The believer’s fleshly body is in the grave, but shall be resurrected unto glory, whereas the condemned’s fleshly body is in the grave too, but shall be resurrected unto judgment…

John 5:28-29
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Lastly, on the matter of God’s wrath being poured out on those in the Eternal Hell/ Lake of Fire, I think the eternal torment will be horrible as only God Himself could design it. If Almighty God ordains and sustains everything, then the Lake of Fire is sustained too, right? In that sense, His wrath is being poured out in judgment via sustainment, but like the old Temple losing God’s presence (Ichabod), the Lake of Fire will be void of God’s presence too….

2nd Thessalonians 1:9
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…

Hopefully this helps a little 🙂

Peace,
Jim