The principal arguments for the intermediate hades, as deduced from Scripture, are founded on those passages in which things 'under the earth' are described as rendering homage to God and the Savior (Philip. ii :to; Rev. v :13, etc.). If such passages, however, be compared with others (as with Rom. xiv :to, t, etc.), it will appear that they must refer to the day of judg ment, in which every creature will render some sort of homage to the Savior, but then the bodies of the saints will have been already raised, and the intermediate region, if there be any, will have been deserted.
(5) Spirits in Prison. One of the seemingly strongest arguments for the opinion under con sideration is founded on x Pet. iii :x9, in which Christ is said to have gone and 'preached to the spirits in prison.' These spirits in prison are supposed to be the holy dead—perhaps the virtuous heathen—imprisoned in the intermediate place. into which the soul of the Savior went at death, that he might preach to them the Gospel. This passage nuist be allowed to present great difficulties. The most intelligible meaning sug gested by the context is, however, that Christ by his spirit preached to those who in the time of Noah, while the ark was preparing, were dis obedient, and whose spirits are 120W in prison, abiding the general judgment. The prison is doubtless !lades, but what hadcs is must be de termined by other passages of Scripture; and whether it is the grave or hell, it is still a prison for those who yet await the judgment day. This interpretation is in unison with other passages of Scripture, whereas the other is conjecturally de duced from this single text.
(6) Destruction of Death and Hades. An other argument is deduced from Rev. xx :14, which describes 'death and hades' as 'cast into the lake of fire' at the close of the general judg ment—meaning, according to the advocates of the doctrine in question, that hades should then cease as an intermediate place. But this is also true if understood of the grave, or of the gen eral intermediate condition of the dead or even of hell, as once more and forever reclaiming what it had temporarily yielded up for judgment —just as we every day see criminals brought from prison to judgment, and after judgment re turned to the prison from which they came.
(7) Incomplete Reward. It is further urged, in proof of Hades being an intermediate place other than the grave, that the Scriptures repre sent the happiness of the righteous as incomplete till after the resurrection. This must be ad mitted, but it does not thence follow that their souls are previously imprisoned in the earth, or in any other place or region corresponding to the Tartarus of the heathen. Although at the
moment of death the disembodied spirits of the redeemed ascend to heaven, and continue there till the resurrection, it is very possible that their happiness shall be incomplete until they have re ceived their glorified bodies from the tomb, and entered upon the full rewards of eternity.
(8) Immediate Transition. A view supported by so little force of Scripture seems unequal to resist the contrary evidence which may be pro duced from the same source, and which it re mains briefly to indicate. The effect of this is to _show that the souls of the redeemed are de scribed as proceeding, after death, at once to heaven—the place of final happiness, and those of the unredeemed to the place of final wretchedness.
In Heb. vi :12 the righteous dead are described as being in actual inheritance of the promises made to the fathers. Our Savior represents the deceased saints as already, before the resurrection (for so the context requires), 'like unto the an gels,' and 'equal to the angels' (Matt. xxii :3o; Luke xx :36), which is not very compatible with their imprisonment even in the happier region of the supposed Hades. Our Lord's declaration to the dying thief, 'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise' (Luke xxiii :43), has been urged on both sides of the argument ; but the word is here not Hades, but Paradise, and no instance can be pro duced in which the paradise beyond the grave means anything else than that `third heaven: that 'paradise' into which the apostle was caught up, and where he heard 'unutterable things' (2 Cor. xii :2, 4). In the midst of that paradise grows the mystic 'tree of life' (Rev. ii :7), which the same writer represents as growing near the throne of God and the Lamb (xxii :2). In Eph. :15 the Apostle describes the whole church of God as being at present in heaven or on earth. But, ac cording to the view undo- consideration, the great body of the church would be neither in heaven nor on earth, but in Hades—the intermediate place. In Heb. xii :21-24 we are told that in the city of the living God dwell not only God himself, the judge of all, and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and the innumerable company of angels, but also 'the spirits of just men made perfect'— all dwelling together in the same holy and happy place. To the same effect, but, if possible, still more conclusive, are the various passages in which the souls of the saints are described as being, %%hen absent from the body, present with Christ in heaven (comp. 2 Cor. v :1-8; i:23; Thess.