When we penetrate into the heart of Bible study, especially if we are illuminated by the Holy Spirit, we become more and more impressed with the wonderful accuracy of Bible words, and we come to see that the terms which the Holy Ghost has selected to express all truth are never haphazard, or used in a mere general way, and the terms for the same truth are not changed but used with great exactness. On the other hand, most all Bible readers have a habit of using various terms in a general and indifferent manner, which is the opposite to the inspired words. And then again, it is a rule that there is something in every language which is lost by translating the thoughts into some other language. As a sample of what I mean, our English words Heaven and Hell are used promiscuously to cover all the states and all the localities that may exist in the future, both of good or bad. Whereas, in the original Scriptures, there are various terms to express all the states and conditions of the unseen world, and those terms are used with perfect precision, and they are never interchangeable, and are never used in a vague sense. The word "Heaven"� in the Greek Testament is almost always in the plural number, in order that it may include all the specific terms which I shall mention later on. And also our word "Hell"� is most always used in the English as a generic term, and in a sort of universal sense to include all the states and localities for the wicked in the future, whereas in the original Scriptures there are several different terms, no two of them used in a confused or indefinite way. Let us notice the special words by which the Holy Spirit has revealed future states with regard to the wicked, and then with regard to the righteous.

1. The word for "grave"� in Scripture is always used for the place of burial of the dead body, and is never used in one single instance to indicate the abode of the soul or spirit, and yet in our English Bible there are so many places where a wrong translation has made it look as if the soul went into the grave, but God never expresses such a thought. The Hebrew word for grave is qeber and is the exact counterpart of the Greek word mnemeion which always means the grave and is always the place for the dead body.

2. Sheol is the Hebrew word for the place of departed souls, and hades is the corresponding word in the Greek, and both of these terms are used expressly to denote the place and the state of the spirits of men after death. The word sheol occurs sixty-five times in the Old Testament, and in our English Bible it is translated thirty-one times by the word grave, and thirty-one times by the word Hell, showing the slipshod way of making that word mean two different things, whereas the Holy Spirit always used the word to indicate the disembodied state of the soul after death, and never does it signify the place where the dead body is buried. The word hades is used eleven times in the New Testament, and never once means the grave, but always the unseen state, for the word means the unseen state, or the place of human spirits after death. It is mostly translated Hell. The word sheol in the Old Testament is the exact counterpart of the word hades in the New Testament, and in every instance the words are used to indicate, not the ultimate Hell, but the place of disembodied souls, and are never used to signify the grave or the place of the dead body, but of the soul. In the next place these places, sheol and hades, are always spoken of as down inside the earth, and never as up toward Heaven. You can prove this by turning in a concordance to the word down. In the next place hades is never spoken of as the place where Satan or demons or fallen angels are, for in every instance other terms are used to indicate the locality of demons or fallen angels, but hades is the place for souls separated from their bodies, which is not the state of fallen angels, for they have no material bodies to be separated from. In the next place the word hades is used to indicate the state and locality of both righteous and wicked souls up to the time of the resurrection of Jesus. The Scriptures describe in the Old Testament that both the righteous and the wicked went down into sheol, and that there was a division or a gulf separating the good from the bad, but Jesus tells us that the souls of the departed could talk across that gulf, for Abraham and the dead rich man held a conversation across that gulf. When Jesus arose from the dead, or, as Paul says, from the depths of the earth. He opened the gates of hades and lifted all the souls of the righteous, and when He ascended took them up into the heavens. When Jesus said that the gates of Hell should not prevail against His Church, He used the word hades, and simply stated that the doors or gates of hades which had closed upon all the departed saints in the old dispensation, would have no such power in the new dispensation, for those who composed His Church would no longer at death go down into hades, but into an upper locality where the gates of paradise would receive them instead of the gates of hades as in the past. And then when Paul exclaimed, "O grave, where is thy victory?"� as in our version, the word is hades, and Paul said, "O hades, where is thy victory?"� Now it is a fact that Paul's body is still in the grave, and the grave has had the victory over Paul's body for nearly two thousand years, but his soul never went down into hades at his death, but up to Paradise, and hence hades has never had the victory over the departed spirit of any Christian since the resurrection of Christ. There are so many similar Scriptures that would be perfectly clear if the words that indicate future states had been accurately rendered.

3. The next term to be considered is that of Abaddon in the Old Testament, or abyss in the New Testament, and which is sometimes translated the bottomless pit, and sometimes by the

Bible Terms eor Future States. 185

word deep. This word abyss is used nine times in the New Testament, and in every single instance it is the place for demons or Satan or fallen spirits, but is never once the place for the souls of men. See how precise the Holy Spirit has made the Bible. Just as hades is never once used as the place for demons, but only for the souls of men, so abyss is never used for the souls of men, but for other ranks of wicked spirits. Just before the Millennium Satan will be bound and cast into the abyss, and doubtless with him all the countless demons that now torment the sons of men. (Rev. 20:1-4.) Satan has not yet gone into the abyss, for he now goes about as a roaring lion, and is the prince of power of the air, but he will be shut up in the abyss for a thousand years during the Millennium, In Luke 8:26 where our English Bible says the demons besought Christ not to judge them before the time, or cast them into the deep, most people think the word deep means Lake Gennesaret, but the Greek word is abyss, and these demons, knowing that the time is coming when they with Satan will be chained in the abyss, cried out that Jesus would not send them there before the time. There is another class of evil spirits called fallen angels, who are not called demons, and Peter says that these fallen angels are at the present time reserved in chains in a place called Tartarus, until the last Judgment.,(2 Pet. 2:4.) Hence, there is no Scripture to prove that the souls of wicked men and demons are put in the same place until the last Judgment.

4. Now we come to the Bible terms which are always used for the last Hell — that ultimate and endless place of all the wicked of all worlds and of all ages. The word Tophet is used in the Old Testament, and the word Gehenna is used in the New Testament, to indicate the ultimate place of the wicked. In both instances the word signifies a place of perpetual burning and is rendered the "lake of fire,"� "Hell,"� and "perdition."� Whenever Jesus spoke of Hell as the place of endless punishment. He always used the word Gehenna, — Gehenna fire. Now according to Scripture no creature in the universe has ever yet been cast into Gehenna fire, and the first ones to endure these awful flames are the beast, who is the antichrist, and the false prophet, who are to be seized alive and cast into the lake of fire. (See latter part of Revelation 19.) And then, after the Millennium, Satan is to be cast into the same lake of fire, where the beast and the false prophet have spent a thousand years, and then it is said that all the wicked dead are raised, and death and hell, that is the grave, give up the dead bodies, and hades gives up the dead souls, and they are cast with Satan and his angels into the lake of fire, which is the second death.

These are the terms that indicate the conditions and locations of all the wicked in the future state.

Let us in the next place look at those terms in Scripture which are especially used to indicate the condition and localities of the righteous in the future.

1. We have already spoken of the fact that the word sheol in the Old Testament is used for the place in the underworld of the departed, the righteous occupying the blessed side in that land of shadows. Another term is that of "Abraham's bosom,"� which was a favorite thought with all godly Israelites. As Abraham was a shepherd, and would gather his sick and tired lambs into his bosom and carry them to the fold, so for a righteous Israelite at death to go where Abraham was, expressed most beautifully the hope of the pious Jew that he might be with Father Abraham until the coming of their Messiah. God told Abraham that when he died, "Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age."� (Gen. 15:15.)

Here are two facts — with regard to his body, he should be buried in a good old age; and with regard to his spirit, he should go to his fathers in peace. And then it is said of the death of Isaac, that Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people. (Gen. 35: 29.) Here are two facts, first he gave 'up the ghost, his spirit left the body, and then that spirit, with all its powers, was gathered to his fathers, to the companionship of Abraham and the other righteous dead, exactly as was the case with Lazarus, who was carried by the angels, after he died, to Abraham's bosom, or companionship. There are scores of passages of similar character that could be cited, and they all prove that, even in the Old Testament, the souls of the righteous dead were in a state of consciousness, intelligence, love, and peace, and companionship, quietly resting, for the coming of the Messiah to open to them a higher and brighter state of companionship.

2. The word Paradise is the next term indicating the future state of the righteous dead. This word Paradise is a Persian word, and was brought from Persia into Greece during the wars

Bible Terms for Future States. 189

of Alexander the Great, and at once was adopted as a Greek word. The term signifies a park or flower garden, where scholars used to meet to study and converse, a place of rest and quiet meditation. This word was used by the Jews to indicate the blessed future of the pious dead between death and the resurrection, and our Lord simply accepted the word as He did other words, and used it in the same sense that the pious Jews did, and told the dying thief that he would be with Him that day in Paradise. (Luke 23:43.)

Many years later St. Paul used the word Paradise m the same sense, to indicate the place and state where the saints of God were resting and waiting until the time of their resurrection. The whole account is given in 2 Corinthians 12, in which he refers to the time he was stoned at Lystra, and left for dead, and at that time his spirit was caught up to Paradise, and he saw and heard things which it was not possible to relate or make intelligible to the people down here on the earth. We are not told anywhere about angels being in Paradise, though they may be there, but the term is especially used to indicate the state of the righteous dead. It would seem that as hades is, in the present age, the special place for the souls of wicked men, so it might be that Paradise is the special place for the souls of the righteous dead.

3. There is another state and condition of the righteous after their resurrection spoken of in the Bible, as reigning on the earth, shepherdizing the nations, sitting on thrones, ruling the elements, reigning with Christ a thousand years. There is no one term to indicate this condition, but a great many that describe such a condition. A living picture of the state of the resurrected saints during the Millennium is that of the forty days which Christ spent on earth, between His resurrection and His public ascension to the right hand of God. During those forty days He could transport His glorified body at will to Heaven or earth, or through the walls of houses; He could appear and disappear; He also ate and drank, and conversed, and revealed Himself in various ways and times, and was independent of what we call the "laws of nature,"� That is a picture of what the resurrected saints will be and do in the Millennium, and such a state will fulfill those multiplied promises about the saints judging the earth, and having charge of the kingdom under the whole heavens, and sitting on thrones with Christ, and being kings and priests. Read Daniel 7:18-27 and Revelation 2:26-28.

4. The last term that the Bible uses about the future state of the righteous, is that of the "city of pure gold,"� the New Jerusalem, the many mansions which Abraham saw in a vision, the prophets spoke of, Jesus referred to, and which is more fully described in Revelation 21. There is not a single text in the Bible to indicate that any of the redeemed have yet entered into that golden city, although Christian people often speak as if the saints go there at death. It is difficult to get even Christian people to stick closely to the exact words of Scripture. According to the Bible, it is after the thousand-year reign that that city of pure gold descends from the upper heavens, and becomes the everlasting home of the glorified redeemed ones. Remember, that when we speak of going to Heaven the word has a general meaning of all the localities of holiness in the empire of God. The Bible speaks of heaven as the place where the winds blow, and the blue sky is, then of heaven as the place where the sun, moon and stars are, and then Paul calls Paradise heaven, the place to which his spirit was caught up, and then there is a heaven beyond that, and then the Scriptures speak of a Heaven that is over and above all other heavens, and says that God dwells in the Heaven of heavens. Just exactly as Gehenna, or the lake of fire, is revealed as the last Hell, the everlasting perdition of wicked men and angels and demons, so, on the other hand, the Scripture speaks of the New Jerusalem, the city of pure gold, that has the glory of God in it, and the Lamb to be the light of it, as the most blessed and ultimate state of the redeemed ones, and in that city the holy ones are to share in all the glory of God, and receive the ultimate fulfilment of all the promises made to patriarchs and prophets and saints in all the generations of our world.