RELIGIOUS READING

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 119, 14 May 1932, Page 7

RELIGIOUS READING

Obscure Bible Localities

“UNSEEN WORLD”—OR HADES

(Contributed)

Scripture distinguishes three “heavens”: first, the lower heavens, or the region of the clouds! secondly, the planetary heavens, or the stars; and thirdly, the heaven of heavens, or the abode of God. It was to the last of these that Paul, speaking of himself, referred when he exclaimed, “I knew a man in Christ . . . years ago . . . who w r as caught up into, the ‘third heaven,’ and heard unspeakable words which it is not allowed to man to utter (repeat).” Now the world immediately following, for us, this present one, the unseen world, or Hades, is revealed in Scripture as the place of departed human spirits between death and the resurrection. The rich man in the parable “lifts up his eyes, being in torments, and sees Abraham afar off (across the great fixed gulf) and Lazarus in his bosom.”

Plainly, the unseen world was at this period in two divisions —the abodes respectively of the saved, and of the lost. The former habitation was called Paradise, or “Abraham’s bosom,” as above. The believing malefactor was to be that day with Christ in Paradise. “A great gulf fixed” sparated the lost from the saved.

Since the Ascension of Christ, however, Hades has altered in one important respect. But, so far as the unsaved dead are concerned, no change of their place or condition is revealed in Scripture. It is as affecting the Paradise division that a change has taken place. Paul was caught up into the “third heaven” — into paradise, which is now, therefore, in the immediate presence of God.

Two references to a great migration of saved souls from the “Paradise of Hades to the Paradise of God” are believed to be discoverable. Following the crucifixion scene, Matthew tells us, that the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept a:ose, went into the holy city (Jerusalem), and appeared unto many.

Tn at these bodies returned to their graves is nowhere stated, and may not be inferred. The inference is, rather, that these saints subsequently accompanied Christ into heaven. Again: in Ephesians IV., 8-10, we read “ When He ascended up on high He led a multitude of captives.” Immediately previous He had descended into the lower parts of the earth, that is, into Hades as then existing, the captives’ abode. During the present church-age the saved who die are, though “absent from us in the body, at home with the Lord.” They, with the unjust dead in Hades, alike await the resurrection hour, but with this stupendous difference: to the one it implies a “resurrection of life,” to the other a “resurrection of condemnation.” —H.M. NEW IDEALS TO-DAY “A great many people to-day are finding fault with the world. Surely a great many things in this present world are wrong, and the pressing question is, whose fault is it? First, however, before reforming the world we need to reflect upon its present condition. As to this the following points may be made: —It is a disillusioned world. Men are not so sure of their ideals as they were before and during the World War. New ideals have come since then. People nowadays are not so easily fooled by the politicians and the leader-writers of the dailies. It is still, however, an illusioned’ world. The problems of the physical world, the puzzles of the psychological domain, the confusion of opinions, and the subtle distortions of truth present a maze of difficulty. There is a way out, not indeed at once from all intellectual difficulty, but from moral weakness and overpowering temptation. The trouble is that there is not enough Christ in us. In our deepest souls we feel that the world can be made right by introducing into it more and more the thought and mind of Jesus Christ, and that it never will be right until this is done. Human limitations render th ■■king difficult, but the old path of love to Cod and man remains to be broadened into a highway. So long as God is God, none need despair of the world, which Jesus came to redeem, and over which His Spirit is brooding with intense yearning.”—From “Zion’s Herald.”