Psalm 16:9,10 - Jesus' Soul in Sheol

Psalm 16:9,10 - Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, Neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. -- World English.

Peter applies this scripture to our Lord Jesus. (Acts 2:27-32) Many combine the scripture in Acts with Jesus' statement in Luke 23:43, and thus by use of their imagination commingled with Hellenistic Jewish philosophy, they seek to see in this that paradise was a part of sheol (hades). Some even further imagine that Jesus took paradise from sheol into heaven. In reality, in examining all the verses concerning sheol as well as paradise, we never find any mention at all about paradise as a part of sheol. Such teaching is derived from the later Judaic doctrines that were in turn adopted from Grecian philosophy and blended into the Bible.

The King James translators evidently realized that the "Holy One" of this text is Jesus, yet they translated sheol here as "hell", despite the fact that usually where the righteous were concerned they translated sheol by the words "grave" or "pit". One reason that the KJV translators may not have rendered sheol as "grave" in this verse is because of the fact that it is Jesus' soul that is said to be in sheol. Had they used the word "grave", they would have been admitting that Jesus' soul was in the grave. So, knowing that in the minds of the average reader hell was at least a place of life, they used the word "hell". Additionally, their "afterlife" dogma may have demanded that Jesus suffer in their idea of hell as part of paying for sin. Or they may have thought that Jesus went to paradise in sheol. They may have thought, in connection with their rendering of 2 Peter 2:4 along with 1 Peter 3:19, that Jesus went into hell to preach to spirits of dead people in sheol.  But to admit, by a translation, that Jesus' soul was in the grave, the oblivious realm of death, would have disproved another of the dogmas of man's traditions that have been added to and read into the Bible: namely, the erroneous theory of the immortality of the soul. Actually, Jesus' soul did go into the oblivious condition of death, into sheol. (Ecclesiastes 9:5,10) The Prophet Isaiah writes concerning him that "he poured out his soul to death"; his soul was made "an offering for sin." (Isaiah 53:12,10) It was essential that Jesus thus give his life, his soul, in order for the human race to be redeemed from death. It was because Jesus took the sinner's place in sheol, in death, that all will be awakened from death and given an opportunity to live forever — "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." -- 1 Corinthians 15:22; see also: Romans 5:12-19; Acts 2:27; Acts 2:31.

We need to emphasize, however, that Jesus go into a place of eternal suffering/torture. Sheol is the resulting condition of the wages of sin in Adam. (Romans 5:12-19; 6:23) The wages of sin is never in the bible said to be eternal suffering or eternal torture. We can tell what the wages of sin is because Jesus paid the wages of sin as the offsetting price for all condemned in Adam. The man Christ Jesus gave his body of flesh with it blood to his God for eternity; he did not take back that sacrifice, but as a man, he is dead for eternity. (1 Corinthians 15:21,22; Romans 5:12-19; 1 Timothy 2:5,6; Hebrews 10:10,12) If the wages of sin through Adam is eternal suffering, then Jesus is now suffering for all eternity to pay the wages of sin. However, Peter says: "Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." (1 Peter 3:18) Jesus' flesh, his sinless terrestrial glory (1 Corinthians 15:40), is dead forever, but his soul was raised out of sheol in the spirit, with the celestial glory. Jesus' suffering ended with his death, thus we also read: "Now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Hebrews 9:26) And, "Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, without [apart from] sin." -- Hebrews 9:28.

A Related Study:
Jesus Died a Human Being -- Raised a Spirit Being