The passage of the Rich Man and Lazarus gives us an interesting insight into the afterlife. That passage combined with other New Testament writings give us the following insights:
- Both the righteous and the unrighteous went to Sheol after they died here on earth during the time before Christ.
- There is already a separation in Sheol between the righteous and the unrighteous, even before the advent of the Messiah.
- Hades is the Greek word for the Hebrew for Sheol, which is basically the designated term for the realm of the departed spirits. It is also is the word for the old English word "hell". Hell is NOT, in the original old English sense (and at the time the ancient creeds were translated from "He [Christ] descended into hell"), the same word we often now use confusingly for the place of eternal final judgment. That latter place was differentiated in the Greek language of the New Testament as a place called "gehanna".
- Both the righteous and the unrighteous are aware of each other's presence in the nether world and they are conscience that there is an ongoing realm of the living. They still understand and process the meaning of right and wrong and are fully cognizant that there was a past and that there is still a future.
- The righteous in Sheol were already being comforted before the arrival of Christ in the world. The unrighteous were already in discomfort, but not in a place of eternal suffering.
- The righteous people in Sheol before the resurrection of Christ had not yet been translated to another upper realm of comfort and well-being.
- After the resurrection of Christ, the righteous who were in the righteous comforting zone in the place of Sheol were then moved up into an even better place in heaven, awaiting the full end of history. The righteous are still not in a final place as they will still get a new body and be fully resurrected at the end of human history. The end-state for the righteous is not a place where they exist only in spirit, but rather in a fully restored glorified body.