Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

We've been talking about the state of the souls of the righteous dead.

But what about the souls of the unrighteous dead, the souls of those who do not

know Christ? As we've already seen in the parable from Luke 16, the unsaved are imprisoned

in a condition that the New Testament calls Hades.

That is to say, they are in a place of conscious torment

until the resurrection at the end of the world.

Hades is the Greek word that is used to translate the Hebrew,

Shaol, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint,

often abbreviated LXX. In the LX, Hades is the Greek word used for Shaul. In this sense,

Shaol, in the Old Testament, describes most accurately the state of the

unrighteous dead. Look again at Psalm 6 and verse 5 read in this light. There the psalmist says, for in death there is no remembrance of

thee, and Shaul who can give the praise? That is certainly true of Hades, isn't it? In this condition,

people are not praising and worshiping God. Similarly,

Isaiah 38, 18, for Shaul cannot thank thee, death cannot praise thee. Those who go down to the pit

cannot hope for thy faithfulness. That again would certainly be an accurate description

of those in Hades. In Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we have Hades referred to

along with a place called Abraham's bosom. Look again at Luke 16,

verses 22B to 23. It says, the rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off,

and Lazarus in his bosom. This is not hell. Hell is the final state after the resurrection of the dead.

Hades is this intermediate state of the disembodied,

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