2. Such was the general state of belief and expecta- tion regarding hmks or slienl in Old-Testament times. With the introduction of the (iospel a new light breaks in, which shoots its rays also through the realms of the departed, and relieves the gloom in which they had still appeared shrouded to the view of the faithful. The term /iiiile.f, however, is of comparatively rare occurrence ill New-Testament scriiiture: in our Lord's own dis- courses it is foimd only thrice, and on two of the occa- sions it is used in a somewhat rhetorical manner, by way of contrast with the region of life and blessing. He said of ('a)iernaimi, tliat from being exalted unto heaven it should l)e l)rouglit down to liades (iMatt. xi, 23)— that is, plainly, from the highest point of fancied or of real elevation to the lowest abasement. Of that spiritual kingdom, also, or church, which he was going to estab- lish on earth, he allirmed that " the gates q{ hades should not prevail against it" (.Matt, xvi, 18), which is all one with saying that it shouM be perpetual. Ilmh's is coii- temjdated as a kind of realm or kingdom, accustomed, like earthly kingdoms in the East, to hold its council- chamber at the gates; and whatever measures might tluTc be taken, wliatever plots devised, they should nev- er succeed in overturning the foinidalions of Christ's kingdom, or effectually marring its interests. In both these )>assag('s hiidi.t is jilaced by our Lord in an antag- onistic relnlion to his cause among men, all hough, from the manner in which the word is employed, no very defniitc conclusions could be drawn from them as to the nature and position »f litidix itself. 15ut in another pas- sage^the oidy one in which any indication is given by our Lord of the slate of its inhabitants — it is most dis- tinctly and closely a-^sociated with the doom and misery of the lost : '• In /iiidci," it is said of the rich man in the parable, " he lifteil up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke xvi, 23). The soul of Lazarus is, no doubt, also repre- Jcnled as being so far within the bounds of the same region that he could be descried and spoken with by the sufferer. Still, he was represented as sharing no common fate with the other, but a.s occupying a region shut off from all intercommunion with that assigned to the wicked, and. so far from being held in a sort of dun geon-eonfinemeut, as reposing in Abraham's bosom, in
penitent malefactor, " shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke xxiii, 43). But paradise was the proper region of life and blessing, not of gloom and forgetfulness ; originally it was the home and heritage of man as created in the image of God ; and when Christ now named the place whither he was going with a redeemed sinner paradis& it bespoke that already there Avas an undoing of the evil of sin, that for all who are Christ's there is an actual recoverj' immediately after death, and as regards the better part of their natures, of what was lost by the dis- obedience and ruin of the fall. See Paradise.
But was not Christ himself in hades ? Did not the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost apply to him the words of David in Psa. xvi, in which it was said, " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption," and argue apparent- ly that the soul of Christ must have indeed gone to hades, but only could not be allowed to continue there (Acts ii, 27-31)? Even so, however, it would but con- cern the application of a name ; for if the language of the apostle must be understood as implying that our Lord's soul was in hades between death and the resur- rection, it still was hades as having a paradise Arithin its bosom ; so that, knowing from his o^ni lips what sort of a receptacle it afforded to the disembodied spirit of Jesus, we need care little about the mere name by which, in a general way, it might be designated. But the apostle Peter, it must be remembered, docs not call it hades ; he merelj' quotes an Old-Testament passage, in which hades is mentioned, as a passage that had its ver- ification in Christ ; and the language of course in this, as in other prophetical passages, was spoken from an Old-Testament point of view, and must be read in the light which the revelations of the Gospel have cast over the state and prospects of the soiiL We may even, however, go farther ; for the Psalmist himself does not strictly affirm the soul of the Holy One to have gone to hades ; his Avords precisely rendered are, " Thou wilt not leave (or abandon) my soul to hades" — that is, give it up as a prey to the power or domain of the nether world. It is rather a negative than a positive assertion regard- ing our Lord's connection with hades that is contained in the passage, and nothing can fairly be argued from it as to the local habitation or actual state of his disem- bodied spirit. See Intermediate State.
The only other passages in the New Testament in which mention is made of hades are in Revelation — ch. i, 18, where the glorified Redeemer declares that he has the keys of death and of hades; ch. vi, 8, where death is symbolized as a rider, smiting all around him with Aveapons of destruction, and hades following to receive the souls of the slain ; ch. xx, 13, 14, where death and hades are both represented as giving up the dead that were in them, and afterwards as being themselves cast into the lake of lire, which is the second death. In ev- ery one of these passages hades stands in a dark and for- bidding connection with death — very unlike that asso- ciation Avith jiaradise and Abraham's bosom in Avhich our Lord exhibited the receptacle of his OAvn and his jieople's souls to the eye of faith ; and not onlj- so, but in one of them it is expressly as an ally of death in tlie execution of judgment that hades is represented, Avhile in another it appears as an accursed thing, consigned to the lake of fire. In short, it seems as if in the progress of (Jod's dispensations a separation had come to be made between elements that originally Avere mingled together —as if, from the time tliat Christ brought hfe and im- mortality to light, the distinction in the next Avorld as well as this Avas broadened between the saved and the lost ; so that hades Avas henceforth appropriated, both in the name and in the reality, to those Avho Avere to be re- served in darkness and misery to the judgment of the great day, and other names, Avith other and brighter