That is incorrect. Sheol/Hades is reserved for the unsaved and unrighteous dead. But all those who are "in Christ" go to be with Christ in Heaven.
The word
hades from the
Greek was used as a counterpart to the Hebrew word
sheol and is more accurately defined as a
state rather than a place.
The Hebrew word
qeḇer refers to a tomb, sepulcher, burying place, grave site, memorial, etc. It is the physical place or evidence of burial.
The Hebrew word
sheol (
šᵊ'ôl) in the OT was referred to as the state, reign, or time period of the dead ….not the grave itself….. it is a continuing state until the resurrection.
Sheol exists only as a concept, it is a figurative, not an actual place. Bodies buried in a
quber (a literal grave) will decay and eventually disappear. The dead exist only in the mind of God who remembers every person who has died. He will send His Son the
Translators of the Greek unfortunately used Sheol as a counterpart to the Greek word Hades translated hell
Sheol has been translated
grave 31 times,
hell 31 times, and
pit 3 times.
Hades is translated
hell 10, times and
grave 1 time.
Where we get into problems is (actually there are two problems)
There are five words translated into our one English word hell making them synonymous in definition
sheol, hades, gehenna,
katakaio, and
tartaros equating all of them as that of eternal torment….. and they do not all mean the same thing.
We know that the Hebrew word
sheol is not eternal torment ….that is well defined in the OT.
Hades translated
hell /grave which was used as the counterpart to the OT
sheol 11 X in the NT ….and it is what incites the second problem (I will elaborate after defining the other three)
The words
gehenna, katakaio, and
tartaros translated hell, or refer to as hell ….all carry a different meaning.
Gehenna – translated hell 12X… A Greek word for the Hebrew “valley of Hinnom” which was a city dump outside of Jerusalem. This was a place that was common knowledge to the people.
When Christ would address this, He was illustrating that garbage thrown into the gehenna would be burned up. No one listening to Jesus would believe that that the garbage would continue to exist in the fire ….without being consumed.
This is the place of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord spoken of in
2Th 1:9 . It refers to the fire of judgment in which the wicked will one day be consumed. It is called “the lake of fire” in the book of Revelation where fire will bring the ultimate annihilation of the devil and his hosts.
Katakaio is used in
Heb 13:11 regarding the sacrificial beasts that were burned outside the camp.
For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
This same word is used in
Mat 3:12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Neither Chaff nor beasts burn forever, they burn up and are gone …many verses make this clear. Nowhere in the Word of God does it say that God will torment forever those who have refused to believe Him.
Tartarous is used only once and translated hell in
2Pe 2:4 it refers to the place of imprisoned evil spirits ……not a place of torment for sinners.
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
SECOND PROBLEM
Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible {1962 vol. 1 p788} states “
The English word hell has taken on the mythological Greek meaning associated with the pagan idea of an underworld where the dead continue to live on in torment.
The standard for truth in defining words has got to come from the Bible itself,
not from the meaning (s) attached to it, which is where the confusion comes in.
In Greek mythology
Hades was the god of the underworld and his name came to represent this fictitious place that we understand as Hell. The Septuagint was a second century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament, and in it the word
Hades was chosen as the counterpart to the Hebrew
Sheol.
E. W. Bullinger states “The Old Testament is the fountain-head of the Hebrew language. It has no literature behind it. But the case is entirely different with the Greek language The Hebrew word
Sheol is divine in its origin and usage. The Greek
Hades is human in its nature and come down laden with centuries of development, in which it has acquired new senses, meaning and usages.”
Nowhere in the Old Testament is the abode of the dead regarded as a place of punishment or torment. The concept of an infernal “hell” developed in Israel only during the Hellenistic period.
As is done with
Sheol, many English versions of the Bible erroneously translate the Greek word
Hades as
hell rather than
grave.
Sheol exists only as a concept, it is a figurative, not an actual place. Bodies buried in a
quber (a literal grave) will decay and eventually disappear. The dead exist only in the mind of God who remembers every person who has died. He will send His Son the firstborn from the dead
(Col 1:18) to raise the rest of the dead from this “place”
(Jhn 5:28 &29)
This is one of many sites that give information on the god of the underworld (Hades) ….it’s some pretty weird stuff.
https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Haides.html
