First, we find in the Bible the obvious fact that people have to die in order to go to Hell. Living people do not go there. This has been the case from the very beginning, apparently, for God revealed through Ezekiel that people from ancient times were in Hell (26:20). This requirement of death in order to descend into Hell is shown in Revelation 6:8, where Hell is described asfollowing death, not preceding it. It is not surprising to find David poetically describing dead men’s bones, scattered around a grave, as lying at the mouth of Hell (Ps. 141:7). So, the biblical evidence leads us to conclude that no living person can enter into Hell by his own will, cunning, or power; God must first end a person’s earthly life and then choose to send that soul into Hell. This biblical truth proves that Homer’s story of the hero Odysseus briefly visiting Hell while he was still alive is not true; it is a myth.
That having been said, the only way to completely answer the question,“Who goes down into Hell?”, is to divide the answer into two periods of time: the time before Jesus ascended into Heaven to offer himself to God for our sins, and afterwards.
PARADISE AND TORMENT
As strange as it may first sound, the Scriptures undeniably maintain that until the New Testament began in Acts 2:4, the righteous descended into Hell when they died. In Genesis 37:35, Jacob said,“I will go down into Sheol unto my son mourning.” This shows that when Jacob thought his son Joseph was dead, Jacob assumed that (1) Joseph had gone down into Hell and (2) that he would join Joseph in Hell when he died. Later in Israel’s history, the ailing King Hezekiah wept and cried out,“I shall go to the gates of Sheol” (Isa. 38:10). In 1Samuel 28:14-15, God brought the righteous prophet Samuel up out of Hell to rebuke the backslidden King Saul and to tell him that he would be killed the next day and then join him in Hell. Lastly, in Psalm 16:10, Christ spoke through David and declared that God would not leave his soul in Hell (cp. Ps. 18:5-19; Ps. 30:3). This indicates that although Jesus was sinless, he too went down into Hell when he died.4 Such verses make it convincingly clear that the righteous who lived before the time of Jesus went down into Hell at the moment of their death.
As for the wicked of that same period, Psalm 9:17 says bluntly,“The wicked shall be turned into Sheol and all the nations that forget God.” David warned his children that immorality would take them into the depths of Hell (Pro. 5:3-5; 7:27; 9:18). And Job said, in Job 24:19,“Drought and heat consume the snow waters;so doth Sheol those who have sinned.”
In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus told the story of two men: one, a destitute, righteous beggar, and the other, a wealthy, wicked man. After these two men died, they both found themselves in Hell. This story from Jesus confirms the Old Testament information concerning the destination of the righteous and the unrighteous after death; namely, they all went down into Hell when they died. But more than that, Jesus’ story reveals that at that time, Hell was divided into at least two parts: Paradise, the place of comfort for the righteous dead, and Torment, the place of punishment for the wicked. Moreover, in his story Jesus also reveals that there, in the heart of the earth, the righteous and the wicke
