THE SPIRIT WORLD

Paradise and Hades

IT is a common practise to designate the place, the time, or the state of existence following death as the hereafter; indeed, that term is defined by lexicographers as the future life. The application is a broad one, too broad to be regarded as descriptive except in the matter of sequence.

Nevertheless, the expression is a convenient one, and is practically synonymous with the poet's phrase "the great unknown." Its usage is a confession of uncertainty or ignorance of what awaits us beyond; and as to duration it embraces eternity, without divisions or periods either as to condition or time. Holy Scripture is more definite, and like Paul's commanding call, on Mars' Hill, to the worshipers of "the unknown God," summons us to hear and learn the truth.

The world of the disembodied was known to the Hebrews as Sheol and to the Greeks as Hades; and these terms, meaning the unseen or unknown world, are translated Hell in our version of the Old and New Testaments, respectively. In a few New Testament passages referring to the state of the damned, Gehenna is the original of the term Hell.

"Paradise" first appears in the Bible in the Savior's utterance from the cross promising the penitent thief a place there (Luke 23:43); and the word occurs subsequently but twice. Paradise is distinctively the abode of the righteous during their period of disembodiment, and is in contrast with the "prison" tenanted by disobedient spirits. (1 Peter 3:19, 20.)

The several places or states mentioned above have reference to the existence of disembodied spirits, and therefore embrace only that period of the hereafter between death and resurrection. Beyond the spirit world, with its Paradise and its prison, lies the eternity of the resurrected state, in the which men shall endure, with spirits and bodies reunited, redeemed from the thraldom of death, and, according to the record of their mortal lives, saved or condemned.

The hereafter, therefore, comprises severally the disembodied and the reembodied existences of the individual; and these must be distinctly segregated in any rational conception of the future life based on Scripture. Read the testimony of the prophet Alma:

"Now concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection. Behold, it has been made known unto me, by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body; yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life.

"And then shall it come to pass that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise; a state of rest; a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow, etc.

"And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of the wicked, yea, who are evil; for behold, they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord; for behold, they chose evil works rather than good; therefore the spirit of the devil did enter into them, and take possession of their house; and these shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and this because of their own iniquity; being led captive by the will of the devil.

"Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked; yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful, looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection." (Book of Mormon, Alma 40:11-14.)

It is evident that the final judgment of mankind is to be reserved until after the resurrection; while in another sense judgment is manifest in the segregation of the disembodied, for in the intermediate state like will seek like, the clean and good finding companionship with their kind, and the wicked congregating through the natural attraction of evil for evil.

The essential features of the intermediate state are deducible from the Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Read Luke 16:19-31. While it would be critically unfair to affirm doctrinal principles on the incidents of an ordinary story, we cannot admit that Christ would teach falsely even in parable; and therefore we accept as true our Lord's portrayal of conditions in the spirit world. That righteous and unrighteous dwell apart between death and resurrection is made clear. Paradise, or, as the Jews liked to designate that blessed abode, "Abraham's bosom," is not the place of final glory, any more than the hell to which the rich man's spirit went is the final habitation of the lost. Between the two, however, "there is a great gulf fixed." To that intermediate state of existence men's works do follow them (Rev. 14:13); and the dead shall find that in their bodiless state their condition is that for which they have prepared themselves while in the flesh.