Tag: Apostles’ Creed

Judgment Day As the Final Reckoning

The article explores the concept of Judgment Day and its biblical implications, emphasizing that death serves as a preliminary judgment. It discusses interpretations of scripture surrounding judgment, the idea of Sheol, and the potential for the gospel to reach the dead, raising questions about the fate of those who never heard it in life.

The awareness of a judgment day runs deep in the Bible and in our culture. Romans 12 says, “we will all stand before the judgment seat of God”, and “each of us will give an account of himself to God.” There are important details of this day that I have shared in other articles (search “Judgment Day” in the box above). For this article I would like to focus on what can be modified before the final day.

Most of us will not live until Judgment Day. Our physical death will come first. I reject the idea that we jump to Judgment Day at our death. This collides with Revelation 6:9-11 and others. Death, however, is a type of Judgment Day. It is a small version of the actual thing. There is serious judgment that happens at death. We do not stay in this world but we go somewhere. Either Sheol if we do not have a solution https://afterdeathsite.com/2025/07/22/sheol-as-a-waiting-room/for our sinfulness or Heaven if we have been connected to Christ.https://givingchrist.com/2024/02/06/what-makes-a-person-a-christian/.

Is that the final judgment then? It would seem that Judgment Day would be a bit perfunctory if this is so. Yes, there is movement on Judgment Day from Sheol to a resurrected body to formal judgment to lake of fire for the damned. The period of time from death to Judgment Day is just waiting in discomfort and without hope in that case.

Maybe that is it. That model of understanding does combine strangely with this:

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2 Peter 3:8-9 (ESV)

It is hard to see how delaying Judgment Day would help “all” to come to repentance. It would help some who are still alive. The long “delay” in Judgment Day would only fill Sheol faster than it fills Heaven since Jesus made it clear that a minority “find” the gate to life (Matthew 7:14). This irony and relegating Judgment Day to a perfunctory role adds weight to the understanding of 1 Peter 4:6.

6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)

This passage is in the larger context of a discussion of suffering for the faith. Within that discussion Peter recalls Jesus’ suffering which culminated with Jesus’ death. He then interjects a brief reference to Jesus’ “descent into Hell”. I use the phrase from how we speak the Apostle’s Creed. I make a distinction between “Hell”, which is what I would call the post-Judgment Day destination of the damned, and “Sheol” which is where I think Jesus went.

We are very conditioned to think of our death as the end of opportunity to be saved. Yet, can you point to a Bible verse that says that? Hebrews 9:27 is all that I have seen in this regard, and I don’t think it works. The context is not about this it all. It is talking about Jesus atoning for sin once with his death. To draw a conclusion that “just as it is appointed for a man to die once, and then comes judgment” means our judgment is sealed at our death adds to the verse and takes it from its context. We die once just like Jesus who died once. That is the meaning.

Does 1 Peter 4:6 in context speak about the gospel being preached to the physically dead rather than the spiritually dead? If 1 Peter 3:18-19 where not in the conversation, I would accept this as a reference to spiritually dead. Is the “preaching” in this passage past tense? That is so from the verb. Is it past like when they were alive or is it past as when Jesus did it to those in 3:18-19?

It is a tough passage. One would wish to have more to work with. If Christ still proclaims the Gospel in Sheol or if he doesn’t, our task doesn’t change. We want people to benefit from the promise, preferably sooner than later. If Jesus did respond to a need with a saving Gospel to those disobedient in the days of Noah and if he still does to other groups, then 2 Peter 3:8-9 makes sense. This is not to say that people don’t manage to be damned. It is pretty clear that they do. But it would explain God’s response to those who never heard the Gospel in life. It would also explain the purpose of an intermediate period between death and Judgment Day.

How Is Sheol Different than Hell?

Many, if not most people, have a simplistic view of what the Bible tells us about life after death. Simply put they believe in Heaven and Hell. One of the goals of this blog is to help people realize that two events change this model: the death and resurrection of Jesus and Judgment Day.

Prior to Jesus, the Old Testament people knew of two things regarding their existence after death. The knew that there would eventually be a bodily resurrection of dead followed by either everlasting life in a New Earth or everlasting contempt somewhere. (Dan. 12:2, Isaiah 65) This information can be traced as early as Job, which is likely the oldest book in the Bible.

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see for myself,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!

Job 19:25-27 (ESV)

The Old Testament people are aware that Heaven exists, but it is never promised as a destination for them after death. Instead, the Old Testament people had an expectation of going to Sheol (the place of the dead). This is not the same as the grave. Some translations of the Bible botch this and then note that the Hebrew word is “Sheol” in the footnotes. Sheol is a distinct place of conscious existence.

Sheol seems to be a two-part place. One section is comforting, but not necessarily better than life. The other section is a place of suffering. The New Testament and the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) switch from the word “Sheol” to the Greek “Hades”. These are synonyms. Jesus uses another word “Gehenna”, which is not a synonym. Gehenna refers to the final destination of the damned, the post-Judgment Day lake of fire. This would be my candidate for the English word, Hell.

Getting Hades/Sheol and Gehenna confused is pretty easy to do. They do share certain properties. Darkness, suffering, and fire seem to be a part of both. One description of Hades includes “where the worm does not die”. I don’t think this is talking about the decay of our corpse in the grave. This seems to be part of the suffering of Sheol.

Finding differences is harder. I can come up with only three within the scant information we are given.

  1. It appears that it is possible, but not acceptable, to communicate with the dead in Sheol. In the story of the Witch of Endor (1 Samual 28), Saul summons the prophet Samuel from the dead through the forbidden skills of the Witch of Endor. Samuel would have been in the comforting section of Sheol. He doesn’t seem too pleased about it either. This practice must have been a part of pagan Canaanite culture and possible also others. The Jews are strictly forbidden from doing this (Deut. 18:9-13). I would infer from this that those in the suffering section might also have been reachable. Once you are in Gehenna you are unreachable and no one will try. (More on that in a bit.)
  2. A second difference connects to what Jesus did right after his death.

8 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared,

1 Peter 3:18-20a (ESV)

This is where we get Jesus’ “descent into Hell” from the Apostles’ Creed. Here “Hell” is a misleading term. It should be descent into “Sheol” or something to that effect. Originally it was.

What was Jesus trying to do? 1 Peter 4:6 explains it:

6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)

It certainly sounds like these people, long dead, condemned, held in the prison of Sheol are getting a second chance through the preaching of Christ. Did this ever happen again? Don’t know. Is there another reference to this in Scripture? Nope. Outside of Scripture? Yes, a bunch. It was a favorite theme of the ancient Eastern church.

This leads to the final and most critical difference between Gehenna (Hell) and Sheol.

In Revelation 20:14, Hades/Sheol is thrown in “the lake of fire”/Gehenna/Hell. At that point, post-Judgment Day, they become one thing. It appears to me that the worst part of being damned doesn’t happen until then. At that point God forsakes you.

You are utterly separated from God and all of God’s redeemed forget you. Jesus experienced this for us on the cross. He was forsaken, and even though He knew it was coming, it crushes Him.

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Matthew 27:45-46 (ESV)

This whole topic can remain an academic discussion because Jesus took the suffering for us. If we are baptized in Christ’s name then we are baptized into His death–specifically, this part of His death.

I don’t need to get any closer to Sheol/Hades/Gehenna/the Lake of Fire/ Hell than this.