If you’ve repented and believed the gospel, you’ve passed the initial and most important test of this life. Don’t think, however, that you will not continue to be tested in order that God might determine your continued devotion and faithfulness to Him. Only those who “continue in the faith” will be presented before God as “holy and blameless” (Col. 1:22-23).

Beyond this, it is clear from Scripture that all of us will one day stand at God’s judgment seat, at which time we will be individually rewarded according to our obedience on earth. So we are still being tested in order to determine our worthiness of future special rewards in God’s kingdom. Paul wrote,

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God (Rom. 14:10-12, emphasis added).

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10).

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God (1 Cor. 4:5, emphasis added).

But what about those scriptures in the New Testament that speak of God predestining us, choosing us before the foundation of the world?

Some unfortunately think that God has specifically chosen specific people to be saved and chosen the rest to be damned, basing His decision on nothing those individuals have done. That is, God supposedly chose who would be saved or damned. This idea obviously eliminates the concept of free will and it is certainly not taught in Scripture. Let’s consider what the Bible does teach about predestination.

Indeed, Scripture teaches that God has chosen us, but this fact must be qualified. God has chosen from the foundation of the world to redeem the people whom He foreknew would repent and believe the gospel under the influence of His drawing but by their own choice. Read what the apostle Paul says about the people God chooses:

God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, they have torn down Thine altars, and I alone am left and they are seeking my life.” But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice (Rom. 11:2-5, emphasis added).

Notice that God said to Elijah that He had “kept for Himself seven thousand men,” but those seven thousand men had first made a choice not to “bow the knew to Baal.” Paul said that in the same way, there was also a remnant of believing Jews according to God’s choice. So we can say that yes, God has chosen us, but God has chosen those who have first made the right choice themselves. God has chosen to save all who believe in Jesus, and that was His plan even before creation.

Why did God create us? Has He had some goal in mind from the beginning? Didn’t He know that everyone would rebel against Him? Didn’t He foresee the consequences of our rebellion, all the suffering and sadness that humanity has since faced? Then why did He create anyone in the first place?

The Bible answers these questions for us. It tells that even before God created Adam and Eve, He knew that they and everyone after them would sin. Amazingly, He had already formed a plan to redeem fallen humanity through Jesus. Of God’s pre-creation plan Paul wrote,

God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ from all eternity (2 Tim. 1:8b-9, emphasis added).

God’s grace was granted us in Christ from all eternity, not just to all eternity. That indicates that Jesus’ sacrificial death is something God had planned from ages past.

Similarly, Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians:

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:11, emphasis added).

Jesus’ death on the cross was not an afterthought, a quickly-devised plan to fix what God had not foreseen.

Not only did God have an eternal purpose in granting us His grace from all eternity, but He also foreknew from eternity past who would choose to receive His grace, and He even wrote their names in a book:

And all who dwell on the earth will worship him [the beast of Revelation], every one whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain [Jesus] (Rev. 13:8, emphasis added).

The fall of Adam didn’t catch God by surprise. Neither did your fall or my fall. God knew we would sin, and He also knew who would repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.

We read in Deuteronomy 13:1-3:

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,” you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul (emphasis added).

It seems reasonable to conclude that it wasn’t God who gave that false prophet the supernatural ability to work a sign or wonder–it must have been Satan. Yet God permitted it and used Satan’s temptation as His own test to find out what was in the hearts of His people.

This same principle is also illustrated in Judges 2:21-3:8 when God permitted Israel to be tempted by the surrounding nations in order to determine whether or not they would obey Him. Jesus, too, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted by the devil (see Matt. 4:1) and thus tested by God. He had to be proven sinless, and the only way to be proven sinless is to be tested by temptation.

It could also be asked, “If all God wants are people who are obedient, why then did He create us with free wills? Why didn’t He create a race of eternally obedient robots?”

The answer is because God is a Father. He wants to have a father-child relationship with us, and there can be no father-child relationship with robots. God’s desire is to have an eternal family of children who have chosen, by their own free will, to love Him. According to Scripture, that was His predestined plan:

In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will (Eph. 1:4b-5, emphasis added).

If you want to have some idea how much pleasure God would have derived from robots, just place a puppet on your hand, and have that puppet tell you that he loves you! Most likely, you won’t get a warm feeling in your heart! That puppet is only saying what you make him say. He doesn’t really love you.

What makes love so special is that it is based on the choice of someone with a free will. Puppets and robots know nothing about love because they can’t decide anything for themselves.

Because God wanted a family of children who would choose to love and serve Him from their own hearts, He had to create free moral agents. That decision involved His taking the risk that some free moral agents would choose not to love and serve Him. And those free moral agents, after a lifetime of resisting God who reveals Himself and draws all people through His creation, their conscience and the call of the gospel, would have to face their rightful punishment, having proved themselves worthy of God’s wrath.

No person in hell can rightfully point a finger of accusation against God because He provided a way whereby every person can escape the penalty of his sins. God desires for every person to be saved (see 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9), but each person must decide for himself.

Remember that Jesus told His disciples that He would spend three days and nights in the heart of the earth (see Matt. 12:40). This does not seem to be a likely reference to His body being in a tomb for three days, as a tomb would hardly be considered to be at “the heart of the earth.” Rather, Jesus must have been speaking of His spirit/soul being deep in the earth. Therefore we can conclude that His spirit/soul was not in heaven between His death and resurrection. Jesus affirmed this at His resurrection when He told Mary that He had not yet ascended to His Father (see John 20:17).

Keep in mind that that Jesus also told the repentant thief on the cross that he would be with Him that very day in Paradise (see Luke 23:43). Putting all these facts together, we know that Jesus’ spirit/soul spent three days and nights in the heart of the earth, and at least part of that time He was in a place He called “Paradise,” which certainly doesn’t sound like an acceptable synonym for the place of torment called Sheol/Hades!

All of this leads me to think that there must be a place in the heart of the earth besides Sheol/Hades, a place called Paradise . This idea is certainly buttressed by a story Jesus once told of two people who died, one unrighteous and one righteous, the rich man and Lazarus. Let’s read the story:

Now there was a certain man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, gaily living in splendor every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your life you received the good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us” (Luke 16:19-26, emphasis added).

Of course, both Lazarus and the rich man were not in their bodies once they died, but they had traveled to their respective places as spirits/souls.

Notice that the rich man found himself in Hades , but he could see Lazarus in another place with Abraham. In fact, Lazarus is spoken of as being in “Abraham’s bosom,” not a name for the place but probably a reference to the comfort Lazarus was receiving from Abraham upon his arrival in that place.

How great of a distance was there between the rich man and Lazarus after they had died?

Scripture says the rich man saw Lazarus “far away,” and we are told there was a “great chasm fixed” between them. So the distance between them is a matter of speculation. It seems reasonable to conclude, however, that the distance between them was not so great as the distance between the heart of the earth and heaven. Otherwise, it would seem that it would have been quite impossible for the rich man to have been able to see Lazarus (apart from divine help), and there would hardly have been a need to mention or even have a “great chasm fixed” between the two locations specifically to prevent anyone from crossing from one to the other. Moreover, the rich man “cried out” to Abraham and Abraham spoke back to him. This would lead us to think they were fairly close to one another as they spoke across the “great chasm.”

All of this leads me to believe that Lazarus was not in what we call heaven, but rather in a separate compartment within the earth.^[1] It must have been the place that Jesus referred to as Paradise to the repentant thief. It was to this Paradise in the heart of the earth that the Old Testament righteous went after their deaths. It was where Lazarus went and where Jesus and the repentant thief went.

It is also apparently where the prophet Samuel went after his death. We read in 1 Samuel 28 that when God permitted the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel to appear and speak prophetically to Saul, the medium of En-dor described Samuel as “a divine being coming up out of the earth” (1 Sam. 28:13, emphasis added). Samuel himself said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” (1 Sam. 28:15, emphasis added). Apparently, Samuel’s spirit/soul had been in Paradise in the earth.

Scripture seems to support the fact that at Christ’s resurrection, Paradise was emptied, and those righteous people who died during the time of the Old Testament were taken to heaven with Jesus. The Bible says that when Jesus ascended to heaven from the lower parts of the earth, “He led captive a host of captives” (Eph. 4:8-9; Ps. 68:18). Those captives I assume to be all those who were living in Paradise. Jesus certainly didn’t release people from Sheol/Hades!^[2]

^[1] Notice also that both Lazarus and the rich man, although separated from their bodies, were very conscious and possessed all their faculties such as sight, touch and hearing. They could experience pain and comfort and remember past experiences. This disproves the theory of “soul sleep,” the idea that people go into an unconscious state when they die, awaiting to regain consciousness at the resurrection of their bodies.

^[2] It is thought by some, and perhaps rightfully, that the captives spoken of in Ephesians 4:8-9 are all of us where were captive to sin, now made free through Christ’s resurrection.

When a believer dies, his spirit goes immediately to heaven to be with the Lord. Paul made this fact very clear when he wrote of his own death:

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for this is very much better (Phil. 1:21-23, emphasis added).

Notice that Paul said he had the desire to depart and that, if he did depart, he would then be with Christ. His spirit would not go into some unconscious state, waiting for the resurrection (as some unfortunately think).

Also notice that Paul said that, for him, to die would be gain . That would only be true if he went to heaven when he died.

Paul also declared in his second letter to the Corinthians that if a believer’s spirit left his body, he was then “at home with the Lord”:

Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord…and prefer to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6-8).

In further support, Paul also wrote:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. (1 Thes. 4:13-14).

If Jesus is going to bring back from heaven with Him at His return “those who have fallen asleep,” they must then be in heaven with Him now.

In order to better understand what happens to the unrighteous after death, we must study one Old Testament Hebrew word and three New Testament Greek words. Although these Hebrew and Greek words actually describe three different places, they are often all translated hell in certain Bible translations, which can be misleading to readers.

First, let’s consider the Old Testament Hebrew word Sheol.

The word Sheol is mentioned more than sixty times in the Old Testament. It clearly refers to the after-death abode of the unrighteous. For example, when Korah and his followers rebelled against Moses in the wilderness, God punished them by opening up the ground, which swallowed them and all their possessions. Scripture says they fell into Sheol:

So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol ; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly (Num. 16:33, emphasis added).

Later in Israel’s history, God warned them that His wrath kindled a fire that burns in Sheol:

For a fire is kindled in My anger, and burns to the lowest part of Sheol , and consumes the earth with its yield, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains (Deut. 32:22, emphasis added).

King David declared that,

The wicked will return to Sheol , even all the nations who forget God (Ps. 9:17, emphasis added).

And he prayed against the unrighteous by requesting,

Let death come deceitfully upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol , for evil is in their dwelling, in their midst (Ps. 55:15, emphasis added).

Warning young men of the wiles of the harlot, wise Solomon wrote,

Her house is the way to Sheol , descending to the chambers of death….he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol (Prov. 7:27; 9:18, emphasis added).

Solomon wrote other proverbs that lead us to believe that it is certainly not the righteous who end up in Sheol:

The path of life leads upward for the wise, that he may keep away from Sheol below (Prov. 15:24, emphasis added)

You shall beat him [your child] with the rod, and deliver his soul from Sheol (Prov. 23:14, emphasis added)

Finally, foreshadowing Jesus’ description of hell, Isaiah prophetically spoke to the king of Babylon, who had exalted himself but who would be thrust down into Sheol:

Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come; it arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the leaders of the earth; it raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones. They will all respond and say to you, “Even you have been made weak as we, you have become like us. Your pomp and the music of your harps have been brought down to Sheol ; maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you, and worms are your covering.” How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol , to the recesses of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, they will ponder over you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities, who did not allow his prisoners to go home?” (Isa. 14:9-17, emphasis added).

These scriptures and others like them lead us to believe that Sheol has always been and still is the tormenting place where the unrighteous are incarcerated after their deaths. And there is more proof.

Most Christians know that when people die, they either go to heaven or hell. Not all realize, however, that heaven is not the final habitation of the righteous, and that Hades the final habitation of the unrighteous.

When followers of Jesus Christ die, their spirits/souls immediately go to heaven where God lives (see 2 Cor. 5:6-8; Phil. 1:21-23; 1 Thes. 4:14). Sometime in the future, however, God will create a new heaven and earth, and the New Jerusalem will come down from heaven to earth (see 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1-2). There the righteous will live forever.

When the unrighteous die, they immediately go to Hades, but Hades is only a place where they will temporarily wait for their bodies to be resurrected. When that day arrives, they will stand before God’s judgment seat and then be cast into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, referred to as Gehenna in the Bible. All of this we will consider in much more detail from Scripture.