Hello, Umut.
Perhaps this article by Presbytera Irene Matta, M. Th., can shed some light on it.
Paradise was not available to Adam and Eve once they had been driven away from its Tree of Life, preventing them to continue in the body of flesh and sin. The restoration of Human Nature by the Lord Jesus heals the wound, or the "sting" of Death. St. Paul declares with joy, that, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," giving his spiritual children comfort with these words.
In his first epistle to the Thessalonians (4:18), St. Paul writes that they were to comfort "one another" with the knowledge that Christ has overcome Death, and that they would be once again joined with their loved ones. Sheol, or Hades, is no longer the destination of the Christian after death, since the obedience and reconciliation of Man to God through Christ. Now, Paradise (though not yet Heaven) beckons to us as it did to Adam, the angels lead us into the presence of the Lord and into our heavenly rest to await the reunion with the body. The fullness of the Heavenly reward awaits that reunion.
The Hebrew "Sheol" is not equivalent to "hell" or "gehenna," or even to the Hellenic concept of "hades," a word which the fathers appropriated with a considerably different meaning. The apostles and the holy fathers used the Greek word hades synonymously with the Hebrew Sheol. It designates a "state or condition of being," not a physical location. It also designates the place or power of death; that which Christ conquered. It was not a state or condition without hope, for even among the most ancient books of the Bible, we find the holy prophet Job referring clearly to the resurrection of the body and its reunion with the soul. He prophesies, "If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my transformation...and where is my hope now?...I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He will stand at the latter day upon the earth: and...in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself." [Job 14:14; 17:13; 19:25-26.]
Thus, Sheol or Hades was a certain darkness, figuratively or metaphorically referred to as "below the earth," describing a state of being for souls before the coming of Christ. It was, however, also a "land with promise," because the Old Testament faithful certainly hoped on the coming redemption and, as Prophet Job reveals, they connected that promised redemption with the hope of physical resurrection. Only after the Old Testament scriptures had been written was it understood that good and evil had a recompense after death, and that the soul could be aware of that coming recompense immediately after death; indeed, the soul might, by its very knowledge of the coming resurrection and judgment, endure already a certain psychological suffering for its deeds even before the resurrection.
St Gregory of Nyssa gives us an expression of the state of the soul immediately after death, saying:
"..the 'gulf' (in the Lazarus parable), which is not made by the parting of the earth, but by those decisions in this life which result in a separation into opposite characters. The man who has once chosen pleasure in this life, and has not cured his inconsiderateness by repentance, places the land of the good beyond his own reach; for he has dug against himself the yawning impassable abyss... that nothing can break through. This is the reason, I think, that the name "Abraham's bosom" is given to that good situation of the soul in which the Scripture makes the athlete of endurance repose.
For it is related of this patriarch first... that he exchanged the enjoyment of the present for the hope of the future; he was stripped of all the surroundings in which his life at first had passed, and resided among foreigners, and thus purchased by present annoyance future blessedness. As then figuratively we call a particular circular of the ocean a `bosom', so does the Scripture seem to me to express the idea of those measureless blessings above by the word 'bosom', meaning a place into which all virtuous voyagers of this life are, when they have put in from hence, brought to anchor in the waveless harbour of that bay of blessings. Meanwhile the denial of these blessings which they witness becomes in others a flame which burns the soul and causes the craving for the refreshment of one drop out of that ocean of blessings wherein the saints are affluent; which nevertheless they do not get...Surely the "hades" we have just been speaking of cannot reasonably be thought a place so named; rather we are told by Scripture about a certain unseen and immaterial condition [or, situation] in which the soul resides." [St. gregory of Nyssa - On The Soul and the Resurrection, para.54.]
St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus during the time of the Churchs battle against Arianism, uses magnificent poetic prose to tell his flock of Christ's Descent into Hades -- to those in Sheol who had hoped in the Promise of salvation through Gods Anointed. Adam hears His footsteps coming to rescue them from the hold of death and Satan, who reigned over death. With Christs coming, the gates of Hades were struck down (pictured in the Resurrection icon), and Satan, along with his demons, was routed. The holy bishop puts words of longing in Adams mouth as he hears his Saviour coming:
"Thereupon Adam turned towards all his fellow captives from ages past and said, 'I hear the sound of Someones feet advancing towards us, and if He deigns to come even to this place, we shall be freed of our bonds.. we shall be delivered from Hades! ..And the Master entered within, holding the Cross as a weapon of victory. ...[He says to Adam], 'I am thy God, Who for thy sake became thy Son, ....now I say Come Forth!, and to those in darkness, Be Enlightened!, and to those asleep, Arise! ...For I did not fashion thee to be held in Hades as a captive. ...Arise, My creation, arise, Mine image, who wast also made in My likeness!" [St. Epiphanius Homily on the Resurrection tran. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Brookline, MA.]
In this dramatic sermon, first preached at the Vigil of the Resurrection, the saint teaches us through Christs own words, about the recapitulation of Adams disobedience by Christs obedience, and the restoration of Adams nature (and our own), by His passion, death, and victory over death:
In a garden I was crucified. Behold upon My countenance the spittings which I received for thy sake so as to restore to thee the ancient in-breathing [of the Spirit]. ...Behold upon My back the scourgings which I accepted so as to scatter the burden of thy sins. ...Behold My hands, which unto good were nailed to the tree [of the Cross] for thee, who unto evil didst stretch forth thy hand to the tree [to sin]. ...I accepted the reed, so as to undersign [the writ of] freedom for the race of men. I slept upon the Cross, and by a blade was pierced in the side for thee, from whose side whilst thou wast sleeping in Paradise Eve was brought forth. ....My sleep shall wrest thee from the sleep of Hades; ...The bridal chamber is made ready, the delicacies are prepared, the eternal tabernacles and abodes are waiting, the treasuries of good things are thrown open, the Kingdom of Heaven has been prepared before the ages... [St. Epiphanius Homily on the Resurrection tran. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Brookline, MA.]
St Ambrose of Milan makes clear the condition of the soul and body after death, and the unity of the two, saying:
And this is the course and ground of justice, that since the actions of body and soul are common to both (for what the soul has conceived, the body has carried out), each should come into judgment...for it would seem almost inconsistent that...the mind guilty of a fault shared by another should be subjected to penalty, and the flesh, the author of the evil, should enjoy rest: and that that alone should suffer which had not sinned alone, or should attain to glory not having fought alone, with the help of grace.
St Irenaeus of Lyons is like-minded when he says:
For it is just that in the very same condition in which they (the body and the soul) toiled or were afflicted, being proved in every way by suffering, they should receive the reward of their suffering...
St Titus of Bostra, rebuking the Manicheans, confirms this thought in words quoted by St John the Damascene:
For the soul cannot enjoy anything, or possess, or do anything, or suffer, except it be together with the body, being the same as it was created in the beginning, and thus it enjoys that which is proper to it. This state is lost in death through the disobedience of Adam, and again through the obedience of the one Christ, through hope it receives (in the resurrection) again the state of being a person.
The soul, nevertheless, since it possesses man's intellectual faculties, is not comatose or ignorant of its fate. St. Irenaeus gives us a description of the state of humanity at death, before the resurrection joins the body to the soul, "[Souls after being parted from the body at death] possess the form of a man, so that they may be recognized, and retain the memory of things in this world; moreover, ....each class [of souls] receives a habitation such as it has deserved, even before the [Last] judgment." [That is, either they go to Abraham's Bosom or to Hades]
St Justin Martyr explains this further, "The souls of the pious remain in a better place [Abraham's Bosom], while those of the unjust and wicked are in a worse place [Hades], waiting for the time of judgment."
Thus, the Church waits for the Lord of Glory to complete His work of redemption in us, to bring together body and soul, separated by death because of sin. St John's Apocalypse speaks to us who wait:
And the Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts...take water freely." (Rev.22:17)
If you have any further questions, just ask, ok?
Yours in XC,
Rick
