human nature now being, by His Resurrection, again
completely one. But into Paradise only part of His human nature passed,
the spiritual part of it, along with the spiritual part of the thief's
human nature. Our Lord's soul and spirit came back, as we know, from
Paradise on the third day. The soul and spirit of the thief remain there
still. So then this is what our Lord Himself teaches us as to the state
of the disembodied spirit, that at death a just man's spirit does _not_
go to heaven, but into a sphere of life which is called Paradise.

But, if this be so, why, it may be asked, did not our Lord speak in
plainer and more definite language? Such a truth, it may be urged, a
truth which so much concerns us, ought not to depend upon a single text.
I do not propose to ask you to be content with an inference from a single
text. But it may be that our Lord did not say more than this about the
great truth with which we are dealing for this reason, that the disciples
whom He gathered round Him, being Jews, perfectly well knew what He meant
by Paradise. This single reference, therefore, is enough to show that
what was a common and prevalent belief among the Jews was a true
belief,--a belief which our Lord not only recognized, but by recognizing
established and sanctioned. But if we are once clear on this point, we
shall find the belief more plainly set forth by our Lord in another
place. What then is the belief that we have learned from this single
passage? We have learned this, that the human spirit of our Lord, and
the spirit of the dying thief did not pass at death to heaven, though if
any spirit should ever be fit to pass at death to heaven His spirit was
fit, but to a state which He called Paradise.

Now, there was another expression used in the ordinary Jewish language of
the day for the state to which the blessed dead passed at death. They
were spoken of as at rest "in Abraham's bosom." Of a very holy man they
would say, "This day he rests in Abraham's bosom." So that in the minds
of the Jews and therefore of the disciples the term "Paradise" meant
exactly the same thing as "Abraham's bosom." We have learned what
"Paradise" meant. Therefore now we know what "resting in Abraham's
bosom" meant. It meant the Intermediate State. {19} The scene then in
the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, which follows the deaths of
the two men, belongs not to the final state of happiness and misery at
all, but to the