Weird Stuff in the Bible

Abraham’s Bosom, Explained
Luke 16

Introduction
There is a parable which I believe is not technically a parable- I believe it’s a true story- called The Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus tells this story in Luke 16. And there’s a lot of strange things you could point out about this story, but what always sticks out to me is where Lazarus goes when he dies in this story.
Luke 16:22
So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.
And as you read the story, you find that a rich man died and went to a fiery place of torment called hades, but the beggar named Lazarus went to a better place called Abraham’s Bosom.
Now, we’ve all heard of going to heaven and hell when we die. And I don’t believe in purgatory. But what is Abraham’s Bosom?
And I’ll do you one better, where is Abraham’s Bosom?
And I’ll do you one better, why is Abraham’s Bosom in the Bible?
We’ll answer all these questions today, because I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Isaiah 14, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

Sheol
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about this place that comes up in Luke 16 called Abraham’s Bosom.
And to understand Abraham’s Bosom, first we’re going to have to understand this place called Sheol.
If you’re a longtime Bible reader, you are probably familiar with this word “Sheol.” It comes up a lot in the Old Testament, especially in Psalms. Some translations, like the King James Version, will render the word Sheol as “hell.” Others will leave it as Sheol or maybe even change it to something else. For example,
Isaiah 14:15 in the New King James reads
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.
Let’s read that same verse in just the KJV:
Isaiah 14:15 (KJV)
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
So does Sheol just simply mean hell? Are they synonyms for each other? I would say no. It’s a little more complicated than that. Sheol is a bigger place than simply “hell.” Sheol was the place where all of the dead went when they died- whether you were a righteous person or not. This was the place of all of the dead in the Old Testament, saved or unsaved. You could think of it as a name for the afterlife back then, whether you were good or evil.
Isaiah 14:15 in the NIV says
But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
    to the depths of the pit.
I think that’s actually the clearest translation of Sheol for us, even though it’s a little clunkier because it takes more words to say it. And I’m a little hard on the NIV sometimes on this podcast, but they give the best rendering here of communicating this idea of what Sheol means. Sheol is the realm of the dead, the afterlife, whether you’re good or bad.
So, does that mean in the Old Testament that it didn’t matter whether you were a believer in God or not because everybody went to the same place? No. There were two compartments of Sheol. One was the fiery place of torment, which you could call hell or in Greek “hades.” And then there was the good part of Sheol, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes.
But it would not be accurate to refer to Sheol as hell to mean that the entirety of Sheol was a place of fire and torment.
Job 14:13 says
“Oh, that You would hide me in the grave [sheol], That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past
The word grave in that verse is “sheol,” and obviously Job wouldn’t pray that he was hidden in hell until God’s wrath passes, because hell IS God’s wrath. So why would Job wish that he was just dead and in sheol if sheol was always a bad place of torment? King David, in his poetry, also talks about going to sheol, and we know he expected to go to heaven. But then again, we can find a lot more verses that talk about sheol as being a place you do NOT want to go. And this is because Sheol, again, had two compartments: hell- or hades- and the good part, which is called Paradise. Paradise was a holding place for the dead until they could go to heaven.
It’s not purgatory. That’s a catholic doctrine for a place of suffering that catholics would teach that you have to experience to be purged of your sins before going to heaven. Paradise was not a place of suffering; if it was, they should probably have come up with a better name.
Paradise is a holding place for the dead until they went to heaven in the Old Testament. Now, if you have never heard this before, this is going to sound wild and questionable, because this is an aspect of the Bible that isn’t taught very much. But by the time we’re done today, I’ll show you that it’s very biblical.
But perhaps you’re wondering: why don’t you think Paradise IS heaven? Why couldn’t they just go to heaven? Why this in-between holding place called Paradise?
The reason is that in the Old Testament, sins had not been paid for yet. It would take the sacrifice of Jesus to pay for the sins of all mankind to allow them to go up to heaven. Until that happened, the Old Testament saints had to chill in this waiting area called Paradise.
Where is Paradise? The Bible describes it as in the heart of the earth, just like hell is. Sheol was under the ground; it’s also referred to as the Underworld in the Old Testament, or the grave.
Is this literal, or is the Bible just using metaphorical language to describe where these places are? I don’t know. It’s my personal belief that hell and the Underworld actually is down under our feet, but you can’t get there by digging. It’s in a spiritual realm that we can’t access in the physical. But I believe there’s a spiritual realm that mirrors our realm, and that in the spiritual realm, heaven is up and the underworld is down. That’s why we call it “the underworld.”

Abraham’s Bosom
So where does Abraham’s Bosom factor into all this? I’ll explain.
You know how we have these alternative names we come up with for heaven and hell? Instead of saying someone went to heaven, we may say they went to The Pearly Gates, or The Great Beyond, or the Great Golf Course in the Sky. And instead of saying “hell,” some people say the Underworld, or the Bad Place, or listening to Cardi B music.
Well, the ancient Jewish people had their euphemisms, too. And one of their euphemisms for paradise was “Abraham’s bosom.” I don’t know where they came up with that name, but the idea is probably that you go to be where Abraham is. You go to be close to Abraham, by his side. So Abraham’s Bosom is Paradise, or a place where the believers went in the Old Testament when they died.
Other words in history for this part of sheol were Paradise or Elysium. Paradise is actually used in the Bible. When the thief next to Jesus on the cross gets saved, Jesus tells Him: today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 24:43).
But, did Jesus go to heaven right after dying on the cross? Actually, no. Jesus went down into the earth, into sheol, and set free the OT saints so that they could go to heaven. Paradise does not refer to heaven right here, as many people assume. Paradise here refers to the concept of Abraham’s Bosom. And in Jesus’ own words, this is where He went. I would say that Paradise, or this holding place in sheol, was brought up to heaven after Jesus died on the cross.
That’s why Psalm 16:10 is quoted in Acts 2 in reference to Jesus, where it says:
For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
This was originally written by David about himself, and David waited there until Jesus came and got him. These words were also used prophetically about Jesus; Jesus was not left there in the underworld, but that’s where He did go temporarily during the three days. That’s why Jesus said about himself in
Matthew 12:40
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
So Jesus was in the heart of the earth during his three days and three nights in the grave. He went down to Paradise, or Abraham’s Bosom, and He set all those people free. He led them on a victory tour through the Underworld. He also visited the evil spirits who had been imprisoned since the days of Noah and reaffirmed that they were staying in the Underworld; they weren’t getting out. But the Old Testament Saints did; they go to go up to heaven.
Psalm 68:18 refers to this prophetically:
You have ascended on high,
You have led captivity captive;
You have received gifts among men,
Even from the rebellious,
That the Lord God might dwell there.
It talks about the victory tour of Jesus that He went on when setting the Old Testament Saints free. Ephesians 4 refers back to this, and someday we may do a deep dive on that section of verses.
For today, I know I’ve dropped a whole bunch of new theology on some of you, and you may have to go back and listen again to wrap your minds around all this. That’s fine. Let me take that theology, though, and apply it to this story that Jesus tells in Luke 16. Now that we have a cosmic or spiritual understanding of the Underworld and Abraham’s Bosom, this confusing story in Luke 16 should now make a lot more sense.

Luke 16- The Rich Man and Lazarus
And this is my favorite part of the lesson. This is where we go back to where we started, and now the Bible should make much more sense to us than before. What was once weird will not be normal.
So let’s go back to Luke 16 with the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Some refer to this as a parable; I do not. If you want to know why, let me know and I’ll do an episode on that subject. I’d be happy to break this open a little more for you all. But for now, I’ll just say that I actually take this as a true story about spiritual reality.
Luke 16:19-23
19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
So in the spirit realm, in this place of Sheol or the Underworld or the Old Testament afterlife, you see Hades on one side and Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom on the other. They are close enough that they can see each other. There is a gulf between them, as it will say in a moment.
Luke 16:24-26
24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’
Between Paradise where Abraham is and Hades is a gulf. Some other translations say there’s a great “chasm.” There is a separation between these two places.
I don’t believe this is how modern heaven and hell operate. I don’t think they’re next-door neighbors. I don’t think we’re going to be in heaven for all eternity and be able to look over the fence and see a bunch of people in torment in hell. That would probably be kind of a mood-killer. I don’t think we’re going to have to look at that for all of eternity. I believe that once death and hell are dumped into the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20, God will close the lid and we’ll never see or think about those people again.
So right now, heaven and hell do not operate with a gulf between them that you can see across. Heaven is up, hell is down. The people in heaven and hell are not talking to each other.
But this was Old Testament times. This was how things operated prior to the cross. So if you’re saying, “Well wait Luke, Luke 16 is in the New Testament.” That’s kind of a confusing sentence. Let me rephrase it. If you asked me why I’m saying this is how things operated in the Old Testament, then why are we reading about it here in the New Testament.
And the reason is that as of Luke 16, Jesus has not died on the cross yet. So even in our four gospels, the Old Testament default setting is still in effect up until Jesus died on the cross. It wasn’t Jesus’ birth that changed things; it was Jesus’ death and resurrection that totally rewrote the script on how we relate to God and how spiritual reality works, even where you go after you die.
Luke 16:27-31
27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ”
Notice that he didn’t say this would be impossible to send someone back from Sheol. He just said that it would be useless. It wouldn’t accomplish anything, so there would be no point.
Remember that two weeks ago, we went through the Bible’s ghost story: Saul and the witch of En Dor in I Samuel 28. In that story, I referenced Abraham’s Bosom and how things operated differently back in the Old Testament. So when Saul perhaps conjured the ghost of Samuel up from Sheol, he was only able to do that because Samuel was not actually in heaven, but he was in the heart of the earth, in Paradise. That’s why
I Samuel 28:13 said
“I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.”
Talking about the spirit of Samuel. Samuel wasn’t up in heaven. He was down in the earth, in Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom. And Samuel wasn’t happy to be dragged out of there. He said, “Why have you disturbed me, Saul?” He liked Paradise better than earth.
And just like it said in Luke 16, remember that Saul learned no new information by bringing Samuel up. Talking to someone from beyond the grave didn’t benefit Saul whatsoever. And Abraham says here in Luke 16, “Even if someone came back from hell and told their story, it wouldn’t accomplish anything.” I know that’s hard to believe, but that’s the testimony of the whole Bible.
But I don’t believe it would be possible for a medium or psychic to bring Samuel or someone in heaven up today. I believe the rules were different prior to the cross, and that’s why Samuel could be conjured up. If you try to conjure someone up today, you would probably only conjure up demons, and that’s why I repeat again that Christians should not be going to psychics and playing with oijia boards.

Closing Thoughts
And we will leave it there for today, guys. I knew Luke 16 is kind of a heavy story. Lots of theology that we covered. Like I said before, if you missed anything, go back and listen again. I tried to keep the episode short and sweet today.
I think next week, I want to wind down our spiritual warfare series that we’ve been doing which is so heavily focused on demons. So I will be wrapping that up with one or two more episodes, and then I want to get back into listener-submitted questions.
Next week I plan to talk about prayers of binding and loosing. Jesus brought that up in Matthew 16, but what is that all about? Make sure you’re subscribed so you can find out!
I know that this started with a weird subject of Abraham’s Bosom. It really feels like it comes out of the blue when Jesus talks about it in Luke 16. But I hope that by this point, I’ve made your Bible made more sense to you, and that it’s not so weird after all.
The Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we don’t know about how the afterlife is a little more complicated than simply heaven and hell. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.