Hell: Who's In and Who's Out Revealed

Now For The Unabridged Version...

As previously discussed in other Papers, before the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, the spirits of all the dead went to a place down in the earth called Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Greek and Hell in English. The term Hell is not to be confused with the Lake of Fire. Hell is located down in the earth while the Lake of Fire is located in some unspecified place removed from the earth. Currently there is no one in the Lake.

Jesus clears up a lot of Old Testament misconceptions about Sheol the Land of the Dead. The Old Testament referred to Sheol as dark, depressing and void of all senses. However, Jesus revealed that the intelligent spirits in Sheol can think, speak, hear and experience both comfort and discomfort depending on where a spirit is located. Jesus tells us that Sheol or Hell was initially divided by a great gulf into two separate parts (Luke 16:26). The part that held the intelligent spirits of those God found righteous through faith in Him was called Paradise. This was the place that Jesus referred to when He was on the cross and speaking to a robber also being crucified (Luke 23:43). And, this was the place that Jesus’ own spirit descended into at the moment of His death. There, over a three day period, He preached the Good News of eternal life to the righteous through His death, burial and impending resurrection(I Peter 3:18-19). The other part of Sheol confines the intelligent spirits of the unrighteous dead. There, these rebellious unrepentant spirits are in an agitated and tormented state of being as they await God’s future judgment on them (Luke 16:19-25). Please see related: “Rich Man, Poor Man”.

Sheol was originally created to only imprison those angels that rebelled against the rule of God. Scripture tells us that after the creation of the earth, approximately one third of the heavenly angels made a conscious decision to reject the authority of their Creator and instead follow His most powerful angelic creation. This creation was the Seraphim Lucifer. When God detected pride in the heart of Lucifer, He was summarily stripped of his rank, reduced in power and cast out of Heaven along with those angels that had pledged their allegiance to him (Isaiah 14:12-14; Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:4, 12:9). Lucifer, now known as Satan {the deceiver} found himself confined in the atmosphere {heavens} of the earth (Ephesians 2:2). Scripture does not tell us how many of his angelic followers were confined down in Sheol as opposed to those allowed by God to serve him.

However, we are later told that several hundred Guardian Angels, also known as Watchers, freely decided to abandon their God ordained duties reporting on the human race and instead mated with human females. This unholy union created a hybrid race of monsters known as Nephilim or giants (Genesis 6:2-4). God would use the flood of Noah to destroy this race only to have them briefly reemerge after the flood. Please see related: "Why Noah Cursed His Grandson Revealed”. These particular Watcher or Guardian Angels are currently chained in the lowest depths of Sheol in complete darkness awaiting God’s judgment (Jude 1:6; II Peter 2:4). Rebellious angels cannot escape their judgments as they do not have a redeemer like the one mankind has in Christ.

Sadly, God would eventually be forced to use Sheol as a place to temporarily house the intelligent and rebellious spirits of mankind. While Adam and Eve were created perfect and innocent, God needed to test them for virtue. To accomplish this, He allowed Satan to tempt them. Adam and Eve failed the test by knowingly eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge between good and evil. Thus they broke the covenant they had made with their Creator. Part of their punishment was that they and their children would all eventually experience death. At death, the intelligent eternal spirit that God gave each person would instantly be released from the body (Genesis 2:7). But, because of sin, their spirit could not immediately enter into Heaven and be in the presence of a Holy God. Therefore, it was decided by the Triune Godhead that a second place needed to be created in Sheol to temporarily hold the departed spirits of mankind after death until the arrival of a redeemer.

This place would be separate from the area where the rebel angels were imprisoned. This place would also need to be divided to keep the righteous spirits of mankind separate from the unrighteous spirits of mankind (Luke 16:24-26). Those people, such as Abraham, that had faith in a Creator God, and followed His command to love and care for their fellow man, would be considered as righteous (Genesis 15:6). And as such, their departed spirits would be safely kept in Sheol also known as Paradise. However, they still had created a sin debt in life. This debt could only be paid in full by a human, sin free redeemer who would voluntarily self-sacrifice himself on behalf of mankind. Only then could they be seen as fully righteous and stand in the presence of God without being annihilated. In order to rectify this situation of condemnation that mankind had knowingly put itself in, the Triune Godhead put in place a plan of salvation for mankind. The Triune Godhead consists of God the Father, God the Word {Christ} and God the Holy Spirit. Three separate eternal entities of one essence and all in one accord.

It was decided that God the Word would indwell a human body (John 1:14). This body was created when a young Jewish peasant girl was impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). On June 17^th of 2 B.C. , the Star of Bethlehem reached its zenith as a sign to the world that its redeemer, Jesus, had been born. Through this Divine-human incarnation, Jesus the physical manifestation of the Word of God, preached a message of God’s love for mankind. Then, as the sin free biological Son of God, He voluntarily self-sacrificed Himself for the sins of all mankind (John 1:1-2; John 1:14). Once this Old Testament prophesied event occurred, mankind’s sin debts were now considered paid in full (Isaiah 53:6; Matthew 27:45-46; Psalm 22:1; Psalm 22:12-18). It was only then that the righteous spirits, once held captive were able to spiritually ascend up and out of Sheol and into Heaven to commune with their Creator.

We now know with certainty that Jesus was crucified on Friday, April 3^rd, 33 A.D. We can know this because Scripture tells us that Jesus was crucified the day before a Sabbath or Saturday known as a “preparation day”(Luke 23:54). Further, this particular Sabbath is referred to as a “High Day” because it was also the start day of the Feast of Passover (John 19:31). Please see related: “Timeline of the Resurrection Revealed”. Modern computer driven astronomy clearly shows with absolute accuracy that this Sabbath Passover occurred on Saturday, April 4th, 33 A.D. So, Jesus was crucified on Friday April the 3^rd and arose on Sunday April the 5th. Even more astonishing, modern astronomy shows that on Friday evening, as the corpse of Jesus lay in His tomb, a Blood Moon rose over Israel!

While Jesus’ body was in His tomb, His Spirit had descended into Sheol immediately after He died on the cross. There He preached the good news or Gospel to the spirits of the righteous dead. He explained that He was the long awaited Messiah, that He had paid their sin debts in full and that He would soon lead them out of Sheol and up into the presence of God.

Early Sunday morning, Jesus’ spirit ascended from Sheol, re-indwelled His now immortal body and He was resurrected back to life. Jesus was the First Fruit of the Resurrection process (I Corinthians 15:20). He was then able to physically pass through His tomb walls {known as Molecular Tunneling} and waited at a distance for some of His followers to arrive.

Throughout resurrection Sunday, Jesus had a series of private meetings with a number of His followers in and around the area of Jerusalem. He first met with Mary Magdalene at the tomb site. Then He met with a group of women just outside of Jerusalem who had earlier visited His tomb to anoint His body. According to Paul, He then briefly met with Peter (I Corinthians 15:5). He then met with two of His closest friends, Cleopas and his wife Mary, walking on their way back to their home in Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Then, just before He met with His disciples that evening during dinner, He descended back down into Sheol a second time. He was able to do this as He was now immortal, and had acquired the keys or ownership of Hell (Revelation 1:18). There He fulfilled a prophecy He had publicly made earlier concerning His being confined three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40). This evening appearance in Sheol would qualify as the third night He was in the heart of the earth. Please see related: “Jesus In the Tomb 3 Days and 3 Nights Revealed”. It was then that He led all the righteous spirits up from their captivity in Sheol and into the presence of God the Father (Ephesians 4:8-10). Matthew mentions this event and that the graves of some unnamed saints physically opened, their bodies were resurrected, they then walked into Jerusalem and were seen by many (Matthew 27: 52-53).

Today, all who die believing in Christ as their Savior, find themselves immediately in His presence (II Corinthians 5:8). All these spirits of the righteous dead are currently waiting for the time when they will follow Christ back down into the atmosphere of the earth there to re indwell their resurrected immortal bodies. Please see related: “How All Saints Arrive at the Bema Seat At the Same Time Revealed”. Those believers on earth who are alive at the time of the Rapture will seem to disappear as they will also be instantly drawn up into the atmosphere and translated into immortality. Then, all the righteous immortals will be raptured from the atmosphere of the earth into Heaven (I Thessalonians 4:16-17). There they will receive Bema Seat Judgments of rewards and attend the Wedding Ceremony and Supper of Christ to His Church or followers (Revelation 19:6-9).

So, the righteous do not actually vanish from the earth, but are simply removed faster than the human eye can process this tremendous supernatural miracle. While this event is known as the Resurrection of the Dead, it will also include the living righteous. Those righteous who are inside structures at the time of the Rapture will be translated to immortality and be taken up out these structures; just as Jesus demonstrated by passing out of His solid rock tomb on Resurrection Sunday. This phenomenon will occur so instantaneously that the unrighteous will not immediately know it has even transpired. However, they will quickly come to realize this reality when they find many of their family members, friends and colleagues are missing. The Rapture may involve as many as 2.5 billion adult Christians, plus another 2.5 billion children. This is because Scripture considers a child as a person that is too young to be held accountable for their actions. And the Biblical Age of Accountability, according to Moses, are all those under the age of twenty (Numbers 32:11; Deuteronomy 1:39). This will leave 3 billion unbelieving and unrepentant adults on the earth. And, this event will obviously be the trigger for the Tribulation Period.

It is during this time that the remaining population of the earth will all have one final opportunity to freely experience the greatest revival the earth has ever seen. But they will also experience the start of a horrific seven year period of time. According to Jesus, this time will consist of the most catastrophic natural and supernatural disasters that have ever occurred since the earth was created. “For then will be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever will be {again}.” (Matthew 24:21) The people of the earth will simultaneously experience the wrath and rule of the Antichrist, the wrath of Satan his spiritual father and the judgments of God as detailed in the Book of Revelation. However, God is not trying to destroy mankind as are the Antichrist and Satan. Instead, He is giving mankind one final time period to arrive at the logical and inescapable conclusion that there is a God, that His unfolding of the Tribulation Period is outlined in the Book of Revelation, and that He is in the process of permanently ending the rule of mankind on the earth. This will be God’s last effort to drive as many people as possible to acknowledge Him as their Creator in order to receive eternal life. Or, to continue to defiantly deny Him and receive the reward of eternal separation and destruction.

On the final day of the seven year Tribulation Period, Jesus will return to the earth. All the people of the earth both righteous and unrighteous will watch in real time as He descends to the exact spot where He ascended from on the Mount of Olives two thousand years earlier (Acts 1:6-11). At that time He will give a command and the Holy Spirit will instantly strike dead all the unrepentant of the earth (Revelation 19:11-15). We saw the shadow prophecy of this event when all the first born of the defiant Egyptians were struck dead just before the Exodus (Exodus 11:5; Exodus 12:29). The Antichrist and his false prophet will then be taken off the earth and rewarded for the fruits of their labors by being the first people to be thrown into the Lake of Fire. The spirits of the deceased unrighteous will be instantly confined in Sheol, and the memory of their having ever existed will be erased from the minds of mankind by God (Deuteronomy 32:26; Psalm 34:16; + 39 other verses). All demonic spirits will also be confined into Sheol. Lastly, Satan will be bound and locked down in The Pit located at the center of the earth for the next one thousand years.

At the same time, the righteous who survive the Tribulation will now meet the righteous who were Raptured from the earth seven years earlier. They have accompanied Christ back to the earth (Revelation 19:14). The world, now under the control of Christ, will begin to immediately experience the beginning of the Day of the Lord (II Peter 3:8; Revelation 2:27). For the repentant, this first Day of the Lord began as a wonderful relief and a celebration. For the unrepentant, the first Day of the Lord was dreadful in that it was the day of their judgement and execution. This Day will be the beginning of a continuous one thousand year period of time with no wars, no crime, no poverty, no famines, no diseases, no pollution nor any natural disasters of any kind. The mortal righteous people of the earth that survived the Tribulation will repopulate the earth and live to be many hundreds of years old before experiencing death (Isaiah 65:20). At death, they will be immediately translated to immortality and continue living on the earth.

At the end of the Thousand Year Reign of Christ, Sheol is emptied out and the spirits of the willful unrepentant are judged and confined to the Lake of Fire. Satan is judged and also confined to the Lake. And finally, even Sheol is pulled up and off the earth to be confined in the Lake (Revelation 20:1-4; Revelation 20:10; Revelation 20:14).

Meanwhile, the righteous people of the earth are completely unaware of this event. Instead, they are solely focused on the New Jerusalem now slowly descending to the earth from the heavens. Inside this gigantic structure {1,500 miles by 1,500 miles} are the eternal homes personally designed by Christ exclusively for each of God’s Holy Children. As the people of the earth are raptured up into this descending structure, the earth is enveloped by the fire power of the Holy Spirit (II Peter 3:10-13). The earth is now being cleansed so as to be acceptable as the eternal home of the Holy Triune Godhead whose Throne Room is now located within the structure. It is from this structure and the earth that God will continue to rule all creation (Revelation 21:1-4).

The earth will instantly be replenished back to its original Holy state of perfection as it was in the Garden of Eden. As it was before sin entered and corrupted creation. Then, for the first time since Adam, all humanity will finally experience the earth and life as it was originally designed by a loving Creator God for His precious Children. Amen!