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The article link you sent has a very nice explanation and mostly right
on.
http://www.gotquestions.org/did-Jesus-go-to-hell.html
Hades (Greek) in the NT is the equivalent as Sheol (Hebrew)
in the OT because of their usage and interchangeability. Where NT quoted
OT passage with 'Sheol', it used the word 'Hades'. And this is highly
consistent throughout the whole NT.
"Hades/Sheol" has two parts before Christ's resurrection, a good one
called 'Paradise' or 'Abraham's Bosom' (Luke 23:43; 16:22) like a
waiting place (waiting for the Messiah and the resurrection of a new
spiritual body), and a tormenting one (Luke 16:23), the latter being
what people could refer to as 'hell' in the everyday general
English/Chinese usage. So Jesus' spirit-soul did descend into the good
part of Hades when His body died on the cross (Luke 23:43; 1 Cor 15; Eph
4; 1 Pet 3), but not the tormenting section of Hades, then He raised
the OT saints and this good part of Hades together with Him (Matt
27:52-53; Eph 4; 1 Cor 15). So after Jesus' resurrection, Hades consists
of only the tormenting section until today, which is what people refer
to as 'hell' in most people's general usage (btw, the spiritual plane of
'Hades' is paralleled at the physical centre of the earth -- Matt
12:40).
One thing I could add to the article is that the term 'hell' is a
very, very general word in its normal usage by people meaning a one
single place of torment. But what many people don't realize is that the
'Realm of Darkness' has many dimensions of darkness and
degrees of suffering (Matt 23:14). It's just like there are many spheres
and dimensions of the 'Realm of Light' (Paul's use of '3rd Heaven' in 2
Cor 12:2 implying the various level of the light sphere), but ppl
usually just thought there's one single place and dimension called
'Heaven', which is really generic of the whole of realm of light, which
is a true spiritual place much, much larger than one realize.
The various dimensions of the realm of darkness can also be seen in
the various Greek words usage translated as 'hell' or the like in the NT.
Greek words such as 'hades,' 'gehenna,' (e.g. Matt 5:22) 'tatarus' (2
Pet 2:4), and other places such as the 'Outer Darkness,' (e.g. Matt 8:12) 'the bottomless pit'
(Rev 9:1-2), the 'Lake of Fire' (Rev 20:14) are all describing the
different sections of the realm of darkness. So what we refer to as
'hell' in today's common connotation is a large, large sphere of places,
which are all places of suffering but different. For e.g., Hades is
located at the spiritual plane of the earth's centre, but the Lake of
Fire is a totally different place located at a different place.
You see in Rev 20:14-15:
"Then Death and Hades were cast into
the lake of fire. This is the second
death. And anyone not found written in the Book of
Life was cast into the lake of fire."
Hades itself here is being
thrown into the Lake of Fire, which means it is a altogether different
place then the Lake of Fire, which according to some, is a giant size
place like Planet Jupiter (which means it's outside of the earth
spiritual plane) with its fire much, much more intense than Hades. That
is why it is especially mentioned in Revelation as the destiny of the
Planet Earth concludes with the New Heaven and New Earth (renovated
earth) after the Great White Throne Judgment. This all implies that
unsaved people do not go to the Lake of Fire when they die today, because
they go to Hades (the really evil ones), which is totally different from
the Lake of Fire. Those who are not as evil go to 'higher' sphere of
darkness, where the suffering is much lesser, while some who belong to
the Romans 2 category don't even experience the realm of darkness, but
remain in an intermediate realm that is between the realm of light and
darkness, where sometimes people may have vision or dreams
seeing/interacting with these spirits waiting to be enlightened by God's
angels (God's working in the afterlife) because they have generally
obeyed their God-given conscience when they were alive (many of them
what we know as the 'good' people on earth who are not born-again
Christians, or those who have never heard of the Gospel in their earth
life -- which is a massive number of people, include all those before
Jesus' coming).
In short, the Spiritual World (realm of light, intermediate realm,
realm of darkness) is a much larger place than we can imagine. If we
know the physical universe is so huge and is still expanding, then the
Spiritual Universes are only much, much larger and more complex because
the natural world came from the spiritual (Heb 11:3). The planet earth
chapter is only one little chapter and growth path of each human being. :
)
Heb 6:5 "ages to come..."
Heb 11:3 "worlds were framed by the
Word of God" -- 'worlds' is plural, meaning there are many other
'worlds' other than the earth, milky way galaxy, and all the different
spiritual-to-physical dimensions, spheres and universes made by God
(e.g. even many different forms and dimensions of the 'physical
dimension', we just can't see it now like we can only see certain colors
with natural eyes, but in fact, there are many, many other colors and
sounds out there).
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