Did the righteous before Christ go straight to heaven—or somewhere else? And where exactly is Abraham’s bosom? #AfterlifeQuestions#BiblicalTheology#christianforums#crosswalkforums#forums#crosswalk#faithcommunity#faithforums
In Luke 16, Jesus describes a place of comfort called “Abraham’s bosom,” where Lazarus is taken after death. But what is this mysterious place? Is it heaven, a holding place, or something else entirely?
Some believe Abraham’s bosom was a compartment of Sheol reserved for the righteous dead until Christ’s resurrection. Others argue it was simply a metaphor or an ancient Jewish idiom for paradise. The debate continues among theologians, but the implications touch on how we understand death, judgment, and redemption before the cross.
Do you think Abraham’s bosom was a real location? And what happened to it after Jesus rose from the dead?
“Jesus’ parable gives us a glimpse of the afterlife—but it raises as many questions as it answers.”
I believe Abraham’s bosom was indeed a real place—not heaven itself, but a temporary holding place within Sheol reserved for the righteous dead before Christ’s resurrection. When Jesus spoke of it in Luke 16, He wasn’t giving us mere metaphor; He was pulling back the veil to show us the spiritual reality that existed before the cross made full access to the presence of God possible. Lazarus was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, a place of comfort and peace, in contrast to the torment the rich man experienced across the great gulf.
To me, this makes perfect theological sense. Before the shedding of Jesus’ blood, the way into the holiest—the direct presence of God—was not yet opened (Hebrews 9:8). Even the righteous, like Abraham, David, and the prophets, could not enter into heaven’s full glory until the sin debt was paid. But after Christ died and rose again, something shifted. Ephesians 4:8–10 says He “led captivity captive,” which I believe refers to Him emptying that compartment of Sheol, bringing the righteous dead with Him into heaven. Now, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8)—not in Abraham’s bosom, but in the very presence of Christ.
So no, I don’t think Abraham’s bosom is still relevant today in terms of its function—it was fulfilled. But understanding it is still relevant for seeing how complete Christ’s redemptive work really is. He didn’t just save us going forward—He reached backward through time and brought the faithful dead into the promise they had long hoped for.
The chasm of the Bosom was deep in the heart of the earth safe and now empty and across was the chasm of Hell now destroyed forever through the Christ in all becoming again One, to me.
We become out of the Bosom of Abraham, now emptied through the Christ from Baptism through Sacrifice for Penance in all One Body, in all generalization.
Logically, At one time even the Earth was Baptized and underwater everywhere at least 40 feet.
Baptism through the living waters brings all into the Church through the Body of Christ in all becoming from The New Living Sacrifice through Penance forgiven becoming again One God
To me, Old Covenant Baptism is Circumcision through our own blood, and Sacrifice and Penance is through the Living Sacrifice saving Only the spirits through Old Covenant One Spirit Nature Salvation for only the spirits in the souls of all awaiting in the Bosom of Abraham for the Christ. Even the angels were told of the becoming power of flesh in the New Heaven and Earth from the blood and water rebirth and salvation from the blood of God from the cross uniting all in all, Both natures become and become again by faith and morality fulfilled from the Holy Spirit incorruption New Adam through the immortal flesh of the New Eve becoming in all, The Christ rebirth and salvation becomes from the spirit through the flesh for the souls in all becoming again One Body, Heaven for all.
Logically, Full glory, immortally transformed glorified and incorruptibly transfigured is reimaged through both natures, from spirit through life Baptized from flesh reborn becoming New Eve immortalized saved through New Adam Holy Spirit incorruption from Sacrifice through The Christ for Penance forgiven through both natures becoming again One Body for all.
To me, Through faith we are saved and through the logical formula of the Sacrament of Baptism rebirth is for the spirit through the flesh from the living waters of Baptism for souls to be able to become from flesh nature death and resurrection through the created souls of all from the spirit, logically. The living waters of Baptism are from the spirit through the souls of all for the flesh to become for the spirit through the life of the body in the immortal and incorruptible Body of the New Eve, logically. Sanctification is both spirit and flesh until the first sin. And from Jesus we have the New Adam from Sacrifice through Penance to return friendship, forgiven and re-Sanctification for becoming again glorified and transfigured One God in being, to me.
Saving both natures now through The Christ, of all mankind, thinking in tune sunchronized infallibility loving only and loving with only the most love, to me. Rationally and logically, God has to get His Mind to flesh through the spirit for all to become One Body through The Christ in all becoming again One God in all, to me. Creation becomes Baptized through the Body of Christ Sanctified transformed immortally and Confirmed in Communion with Him from Sacrifice through Penance Absolution of Sin through the Words forgiven becoming glorified and incorruptibly transfigured through three powers and persons in being and Personal Gods preexisting becoming inside of us and living becoming again One God in being all One God.
So true, The_Omega, Sin debt is now repaid from the New Living Sacrifice through both natures both God and Temple become together again in One God in being from Sacrifice through Penance, forgiven becoming again One Holy Spirit Family One God in being, in all generalizations.
To me, Through the Faith of Abraham all mankind logically becomes mystically logically united as One Family in being through both natures One God in being One God
In the Old Testament we tend to see a fairly “simple” description of the state of the dead. There is simply She’ol, the grave or pit, the place of the dead. There does not appear to be any distinction between a place of the righteous dead and a place of the wicked dead (not that there is no distinction, but no clear distinction is made textually). So, for example, the Psalmist can say he makes his bed in She’ol God is there with him; or David can speak of not seeing his infant son who died until they meet again in She’ol. She’ol, when translated into Greek, is translated as Hades; Hades is the closest approximate to the Hebrew concept of the realm of the dead or “underworld”.
In the 2nd Temple Period Jewish literature begins to demarcate the place of the righteous dead and the place of the wicked dead. So we start to see mention of Paradise (Greek paradeisos, a borrowing of the Persian word pairidaeza meaning an enclosed park or garden), borrowing heavily the language of Eden, so in Hebrew was called Gan-Eden (“Garden of Eden”). It was also called Ba’heq Avraham (“Abraham’s Bosom”). This place of the righteous dead is connected to She’ol, the underworld/place of the dead but is also described as a heavenly place. In the Enochian texts of the 2nd Temple the Garden of Eden or Paradise is described as being in the “third heaven” (in the ancient Near East there was often the idea of “seven heavens” as the number seven had deep significance; though in the text of 2 Enoch itself the number of heavens is ten). This gives us some insight into what St. Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians when he speaks of a man he knew (most believe he refers to himself here) having a profound visionary experience of being taken up into the third heaven to see Paradise.
In the Gospels Jesus speaks of Paradise/Abraham’s Bosom as existing on the opposite side of a great chasm in She’ol/Hades from Gehenna (Ge-Hinnom in Hebrew, literally the Hinnom Valley, the geographical valley outside of Jerusalem where in ancient times the cult of Moloch sacrificed children to their profane false god). So the “location” of Paradise is described as both part of She’ol or the underworld and also “in the heavens”. It’s not a mutually exclusive idea here. Jesus describes it as opposite Gehenna in She’ol, Paul experiences it in “the third heaven”, and this isn’t a contradiction, it is simply the way 2nd Temple Judaism spoke of it.
Ultimately it’s not about location, it’s about the state of the dead. Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom is about the waiting of the righteous dead: waiting for the coming of the Messiah, waiting for the resurrection, waiting for release from death and the fulfillment of the hope of God’s rescue project. And so when the Messiah comes–when Jesus comes–this fulfills that hope, His death and resurrection are the release the ancient patriarchs and prophets longed for, all the righteous dead longing for.
The historic Christian doctrine of Christ’s descent into She’ol and the Harrowing of Hell is two-fold: it is Christ’s victory and defeat of the power of death and hell, crushing the devil under His feet and the release of captives, the long-hoped-for release of those waiting in She’ol, in Abraham’s Bosom, for the coming of the Messiah and the hope He brings to Israel and the nations. So in traditional iconography depicting Christ’s descent it depicts the Lord triumphant in hell, with the doors/gates of hell trampled down, with the figures of death and the devil bound and crushed under His feet; with the Lord lifting Adam (sometimes both Adam and Eve) out of their sarcophagi with the entourage of Old Testament saints on His left and right.
On the other hand, Jesus mentions “Abraham’s bosom” in his parable. To interpret parables, we need to realize that they are fictional stories that are told usually to make one point.
Therefore, that parable is one of warning to unbelievers about their dangerous future if they don’t trust in Jesus as the only way to the Father. As a result, Abraham’s place of comfort is the opposite to hell, that is, heaven.
