Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/111

 is a demonstration that an intermediate place must have been the scene of those appearances.

We might, indeed, dwell upon other evidences, and extend our reasonings over a considerable space, but we will only advert to one other circumstance in proof of our position. This, however, is of great weight and importance in the argument. It was predicted, concerning the Lord, that His soul should not be left in sheol, that is hades. It has, we think, been clearly shown that those terms denote the world of spirits; but if there were any doubts respecting this, a little attention to the narrative, in which the prediction is considered to have been fulfilled, will sufficiently remove them. The circumstance that the Lord, after His resurrection, was not to be left in hades, clearly shows that He must have been there at least for a period, and that that was the scene of His operations, prior to his ascension. Now, where was this? Our answer is known: but look at another proof of it. There is a clause in a popular creed which says of the Lord, that "He descended into hell:" but there is no Scriptural statement to that effect, if that term be understood to mean the miserable abodes of those who are irretrievably lost; and yet there is a distinct narration of His having been in some department of the spiritual world which is not properly heaven. The Apostle Peter, as we have seen, tells us that the Lord, being quickened by the Spirit, went and taught some spirits who had been detained there from the days of Noe.

But apart from this fact, the Lord, by His resurrection, passed away from the ordinary sight of men in the natural world: He was no longer seen by their physical eyes: and when the disciples were privileged to behold Him, it was by means of some specific sight opened in them for the