Sorting out Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the Abode of the Just, and Hell<br> What happened to Christ after

He died? 16/07/2018, 10*06 AM

Sorting out Sheol, Hades,

Gehenna, the Abode of the Just,
and Hell What happened to
Christ after He died?
Sheol, hades and hell are basically the same thing:

"hell" is English,
"sheol" is Hebrew
"hades" is Greek

So let's use the word "hell" since that's our English word for it. No one was in
heaven before Jesus came onto the scene. Everybody went to hell, but there
were two areas of hell. St. Augustine taught that hell isn't a place per se, but
rather a state, the absence of God and His love. It's more a spiritual state of
being. Like darkness, which has no substance, but is just the absence of light.
However, we kind of need to talk about these states of being like places in
order to understand with our human minds.

Hell was divided into two areas before Christ

made the jail break :
1. The Abode of the Just - Abraham's Bosom (Lk 16:22-26) This is
where they awaited their promised deliverance.

2. Gehenna (Greek): This is the lake of fire. Eternal damnation (Mt:18:9)

The good guys went to the Abode of the Just (Abraham's Bosom), the bad
guys when to gehenna. There was a great chasm between the two places and

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Sorting out Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the Abode of the Just, and Hell<br> What happened to Christ after He died? 16/07/2018, 10*06 AM

there was no way to get to one side from the other. (Mt:18:9). Christ
descended into hell on Good Friday so he could rescue the righteous from the
part of hell where the righteous were.(1 Pt 3:18-19) Jesus is the only way to
Heaven so it was important that he descended to the dead. (Jn 14:6) Jesus
didn't go to hell as a dead guy. He went there as the Saviour. Jesus blew down
the doors of the Abode of the Just and grabbed out every faithful servant of
God from the beginning of history. He rescued them and freed them from this
prison on Holy Saturday. Praise God! That must have been a great party.

Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell
of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him. [After Jesus'
death] "the tombs opened and the bodies of many holy people rose from the
dead..." (Matthew 27:52-53) Yeah, Jesus is the saviour of all humanity, even
those from Old Testament times.

No one was left in the Abode of the Just after Christ did the jail bust on Holy
Saturday. After that Easter Sunday there was only one area of hell left. That's
the lake of fire (gehenna). The folks in gehenna were lost for all eternity
because they rebelliously refused God. Jesus didn't hang out with those guys
during his three days in hell. Many still go to hell. Please Jesus keep me in
your shadow!

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Sorting out Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the Abode of the Just, and Hell<br> What happened to Christ after He died? 16/07/2018, 10*06 AM

Fr. Terry Donahue writes:

"The gospel was preached even to the dead." (1 Peter 4:6) The descent into
hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is
the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in
time (3 days) but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's
redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are
saved have been made sharers in the redemption.

Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the
voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." (John 5:25) Jesus,
"the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death,
that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were
subject to lifelong bondage." (Heb 2:14-15) Henceforth the risen Christ
holds "the keys of Death and Hades" (Rev 1:18), so that "at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth." (Phil 2:10)

The Good Thief was one of those freed by Christ from the Abode of the
Just, just after his death. To be with Christ in His victory over death
qualifies as "paradise" to me!

The Abode of the Just is different from "Purgatory" which Catholics believe
is where those who have died in Christ are purified before entering into the
fullness of God's presence in Heaven. But the Abode of the Just, which no
longer has anybody in it, was kind of a precursor to Purgatory. All the souls in
Abode of the Just (Abraham's Bosom) were freed by Christ. Similarly, all of
the souls in Purgatory will make it to heaven eventually. The souls in
Purgatory are just getting cleaned up (purified) for the wedding banquet.(Mat
22:12) For nothing unclean can enter the presence of God in heaven (Rev.
21:27)

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Sorting out Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the Abode of the Just, and Hell<br> What happened to Christ after He died? 16/07/2018, 10*06 AM

(1) The first version, for Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga, Andrea Mantegna.
This smaller one, which was probably done for Ferdinando Carlo, the last
Duke of Mantua, around 1470–75. Lent to the Frick Museum, NYC from the
Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection. The conventional title given to the
work, its workshop replicas and the engraving of it, Christ's Descent into
Limbo, is a modern one.

A full discussion of the biblical and traditional reasons Catholics believe in

Purgatory is found here.

Thanks to Fr. Terry Donahue for many of the insights in this article.

Lord Jesus, let Your prayer of unity for Christians

become a reality, in Your way.
We have absolute confidence
that you can bring your people together,
we give you absolute permission to move.
Amen

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