What is the difference between Heaven/Paradise/Sheol
How about Hell/Hades/The Lake of Fire?
Are they synonyms, are they different places?
Tell me more
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As Jesus hung on the cross, he famously said to one of the thieves being crucified along with him that "today you will be with me in Paradise." This establishes where Jesus was going to be after his death. But after his resurrection, when Mary Magdalene found him in the garden, he told her that he had not yet been to Heaven to present himself to the Father. (John 20:17) This establishes that Paradise is different from Heaven. 1 Peter 3: 18-19 explains that while Jesus was dead (and therefore in Paradise), he went to preach to "spirits in prison" who had been disobedient in mortality. So it would seem that after death, people's spirits are sent to an intermediary location to await the resurrection. Those who have been righteous go to paradise, and those who have been disobedient go to a "prison" whose name is not specified clearly. But these intermediary locations are not the same as Heaven and Hell, the places to which we are sent after the Judgment, which is explicitly stated to take place after the resurrection in several different scriptures. |
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