p492 [R T Grant] BELOVED BROTHER, - As regards your hard questions, I am not disposed to be wise above what is written. It was the old patristic doctrine, but with every imaginable notion tacked to it. It issued in the limbo patrum, or as now expressed, the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers, but I humbly think they (nor our friends who speak of it) know nothing about it - at any rate, I do not. People like to speak of mysterious things about which we know nothing: we can dogmatise ecclesiastically or hereticise conveniently. Where was Samuel, and Lazarus, may be settled by both, because God has said nothing. That Christ's soul went to Sheol I believe from Psalm 16. The womb is called the lower parts of the earth in Psalm 139, which makes it more mysterious still; that Christ went to paradise and took the thief there as a place of blessedness with Himself is certain.

Sheol is too vague to say anything. In Numbers 16:31, they went alive, body as well as soul, into Sheol. In Isaiah (14) the poetical allusion is to the grave: they rise from their thrones to meet him. But there, and in Amos (9:2), it is from burying or swallowing up de facto looked at as on the earth. So in Psalm 49:14: they lie in Sheol like sheep: their beauty shall consume in Sheol. Yet Psalm 16: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol." Here we have New Testament interpretation that His soul was not left in Sheol, nor His flesh saw corruption. But here, as far as it goes, His coming out was in resurrection. I say as far as it goes, for only the fact is mentioned. Still verse 31 (Acts 2) speaks pretty plain. So it is identified with bor, the pit, in Isaiah 38:18. In Luke 16 (Jewish forms of thought, I admit) the rich man is in ἁδῃ and Abraham afar off, and there was a great gulf between. This as to state of fathers. All this the fathers made physical truth out of, as some would now, and had a kind of extension on the side of the earth, a cage of happy birds, and hence prayed for the saints to be soon out of it and in the beatific vision, which afterwards came to be praying to them, as to which the liturgy was formally changed. Epiphanius, I remember, says even the Virgin Mary was prayed for: Christ was the only exception. But then every one had his own ideas pretty much, till it settled into purgatory in the Roman - not the Grecian church. Jonah was in the belly of Sheol. It is evident the Old Testament saints were all in the dark as to it, with a lightning ray crossing in sometimes.

As to 1 Thessalonians 4, "them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," I have no doubt at all it is after resurrection when He comes again. Jesus died and rose again, and will come, so the saints with Him, and then in a parenthesis it describes how they get there, and in chapter 5 continues the bringing with Him for the day of the Lord. Life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel. All was dark before. "The living, the living, he shall praise thee." The present fruit of death was seen and outwardly they went into the grave, and all was dark beyond. Saul's being with Samuel was merely being a dead man, I apprehend. There was also the general idea - "the spirit shall return to God who gave it." The passage in Acts makes it difficult to separate, for Christ, hades and paradise if He was in Sheol till the resurrection, but I believe Sheol is purposely vague and dark, as hades merely means the invisible place. We know if we depart we are with Christ. But I do not profess to know much about it (nor do I think others do much more), nor pretend to know more than is said. I have not a concordance with me. I have quoted what occurred to my memory: there may be other passages which cast more light on it. Hoping ere long to see you, and with affectionate love to all the saints.

Ever affectionately yours.

Psalm 30 only gives the same; "Kept me alive" (ver. 3) shews it was a vague idea of what was past death.

As to Sheol, to see how vague it is in scripture, see Genesis 42:38; 44:29, 31. 1 Kings 2:6, 9. Job 11:8 seq. Psalm 86:13; 141:7. Isaiah 14:11; 28:15, 18. It meets sight at the grave, and all is dark and silent beyond. Job 7:9, where nothing is seen beyond - Job 14:12. Yet we have "the lowest hell," where lowest is lowest part. So Deuteronomy 32:22, same as lower parts (of earth), only singular, Job 17:13. As to lower parts (of the earth), you have these of Sheol, and some of the earth: Psalm 63:9; 139:15; Isaiah 44:23. It is most common in Ezekiel (Ezek. 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24). There is also Psalm 88:6, lowest Sheol.

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