Hell hath both an entrance and an exit
During this hundred years many other great truths not known before, have been declared to the people, and one of the greatest is that to hell there is an exit as well as an entrance. Hell is no place to which a vindictive judge sends prisoners to suffer and to be punished principally for his glory; but it is a place prepared for the teaching, the disciplining of those who failed to learn here upon the earth what they should have learned. True, we read of everlasting punishment, unending suffering, eternal damnation. That is a direful expression; but in his mercy the Lord has made plain what those words mean. “Eternal punishment,” he says, is God’s punishment, for he is eternal; and that condition or state or possibility will ever exist for the sinner who deserves and really needs such condemnation; but this does not mean that the individual sufferer or sinner is to be eternally and everlastingly made to endure and suffer. No man will be kept in hell longer than is necessary to bring him to a fitness for something better. When he reaches that stage the prison doors will open and there will be rejoicing among the hosts who welcome him into a better state. The Lord has not abated in the least what he has said in earlier dispensations concerning the operation of his law and his gospel, but he has made clear unto us his goodness and mercy through it all, for it is his glory and his work to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man. 1
The meaning of the word paradise – παράδεισος
Luke 23.43 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμήν λέγω σοι σήμερον μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ
Translation: And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today with me you will be in paradise.”
παράδεισος is a word that came to the Greeks from Persia. Among the Persians this word was used to describe a grand enclosure or preserve, hunting ground, park, shady and well watered area in which wild animals were kept for the hunt. It was enclosed by walls and furnished with towers for the hunters. The word paradeisos combines two ideas: that of a wall and the idea of this wall surrounding an area.
Etymology of Paradise
Late Old English, “the garden of Eden,” from Old French paradis “paradise, garden of Eden” (11c.), from Late Latin paradisus “a park, an orchard; the garden of Eden, the abode of the blessed,” from Greek paradeisos “a park; paradise, the garden of Eden,” from an Iranian source similar to Avestan pairidaeza “enclosure, park” (Modern Persian and Arabic firdaus “garden, paradise”), a compound of pairi– “around” (from PIE root *per- (1) “forward,” hence “in front of, near, against, around”) + diz “to make, to form (a wall).” The first element is cognate with Greek peri “around, about” (see per), the second is from PIE root *dheigh– “to form, build.”
The Greek word was used by Xenophon and others for an orchard or royal hunting park in Persia, and it was taken in Septuagint to mean “the garden of Eden,” and in New Testament translations of Luke 23.43 to mean “the Christian heaven, place where the souls of the righteous departed await resurrection” (a sense attested in English from c. 1200; extended from c. 1400 to the Muslim heaven). Meaning “place of extreme beauty, blissful state like or comparable to Paradise” is from c. 1300. The Gates of Paradise originally meant “the Virgin Mary” (late 14c.) 2
Joseph Smith on the word paradise as used in Luke 23.43
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “There has been much said by modern divines about the words of Jesus (when on the cross) to the thief, saying, ‘This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.’ King James’ translators make it out to say paradise. But what is paradise? It is a modern word: it does not answer at all to the original word that Jesus made use of. Find the original of the word paradise. You may as easily find a needle in a haymow. Here is a chance for battle, ye learned men. There is nothing in the original word in Greek from which this was taken that signifies paradise; but it was—This day thou shalt be with me in the world of spirits: then I will teach you all about it and answer your inquiries. And Peter says he went and preached to the world of spirits (spirits in prison, I Peter, 3rd chap., 19th verse), so that they who would receive it could have it answered by proxy by those who live on the earth.” 3
Taken home to that God who gave him life
Elder Orson Pratt said, “To go into the presence of God is not necessarily to be placed within a few yards or rods, or within a short distance of his person.” 4
President George Q. Cannon explained: “Alma, when he says that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body. . . are taken home to that God who gave them life,’ has the idea doubtless, in his mind that our God is omnipresent- not in His own personality but through His minister, the Holy Spirit. He does not intend to convey the idea that they are immediately ushered into the personal presence of God. He evidently uses that phrase in a qualified sense.” 5
Elder Heber C. Kimball stated: “As for my going into the immediate presence of God when I die, I do not expect it, but I expect to go into the world of spirits and associate with my brethren, and preach the Gospel in the spiritual world, and prepare myself in every necessary way to receive my body again, and then enter through the wall into the celestial world. I never shall come into the presence of my Father and God until I have received my resurrected body, neither will any other person.” 6
What does taken home to God mean? These words of Alma as I understand them, do not intend to convey the thought that all spirits go back into the presence of God for an assignment to a place of peace or a place of punishment and before him receive their individual sentence. “Taken home to God,” simply means that their mortal existence has come to an end, and they have returned to the world of spirits, where they are assign-ed to a place according to their works with the just or with the unjust, there to await the resurrection. “Back to God” is a phrase which finds an equivalent in many other well known conditions. …In the question of spirits returning to God, Pres. George Q. Cannon has made the following comment: Alma, when he says that “the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body…are taken home to that God who gave them life,” has the idea doubt-less, in his mind that our God is omnipresent not in His own personality but through His minister, the Holy Spirit. He does not intend to convey the idea that they are immediately ushered into the personal presence of God. He evidently uses that phrase in a qualified sense…. Solomon, makes such a similar statement: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Eccl. 12:7) The same idea is frequently expressed by the Latter day Saints. 7
Notes
- Elder James E. Talmage, Conference Report, April 1930, 97.
- “Paradise,” from Etymoline.com accessed 7.26.2020
- Joseph F. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Deseret Book, 1977, p. 309.
- Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, 16:365.
- George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, p. 58.
- Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 3:112-113.
- Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Answers to gospel questions, 2:85.