Posted on 03/21/2011 10:34:29 AM PDT by count-your-change
Where was Christ for the three days following his death? It seems a simple enough question and it is. The answer is simple too. One might turn to Matthew 27:59, 60, where it says a rich man, Joseph, took Jesus' body and had it put in Joseph's prepared tomb and then a large stone was rolled in place to close up the cave like tomb.
So why would there be a question? Well, before Jesus died he had been asked to be remembered by a criminal hanging nearby. Said this man:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." By the request he shows he does expect, he has faith, that despite the present situation, that Jesus would indeed, 'come into his kingdom'.
But it is Jesus' answer that some find hard to understand or explain:
"He replied, "Truly I tell you today you will be with me in paradise". Notice that I left out the comma which does not appear in the Greek. It is the placement of that comma that brings the question of whether Jesus was saying either "today you will be with me" or "today I am saying to you", two very different things. Most translators place the comma before "today" in line their beliefs about Christ's condition during those three days, not according to any necessity occasioned by the Greek grammar. Is such placement, and the meaning it imparts, justified according to what the rest of the Scriptures say? No, not at all. How so?
Jesus said he, "the son of man" was to "be killed and on the third day raised up (resurrected)". (Luke 9:22) and Peter confirms that this is exactly what occurred at Acts 10:40,41 saying Christ 'rose from the dead'.
Earlier Peter had interpreted Psalm 16:10 as fitting the Christ, saying Christ had gone into Hades, or hell as some translations have it, as had David, to await God's resurrection of them. (Acts 2:29-36) David though, would have to wait until that much broader resurrection Paul spoke of at Acts 24:15, the "resurrection of both the righteous and unrighteous".
But what of the criminal and the promise made to him? Did he die and go to heaven, hell, where?
He had not been born again. He had not repented or been baptized or become a disciple and shown his faith by his works as had those Paul spoke of in Hebrews chapter 11. He, like David, would have to wait for that resurrection from the memorial tombs (John 5:28, 29) of the "righteous and unrighteous" sometime in the future.
Only then, when Christ was "in his kingdom", could this criminal expect to be in "paradise". Mean while he was dead, unconscious, (Eccl. 9:4-6), what Christ compared to sleep.(John 11:11)
They were in the same paradise (the ‘nice’ side of Hades) that the beggar Lazarus went to.
No one has removed anything from the verse. Tell me...by what grammatical rule was a comma added in the first instance? Has “heavy textual and hermeneutical reasons underlied that change.”
Nice try, but I won't let you dodge the question.
The "translator committee" behind the Watchtower's New World Translation (NWT) removed the comma in this version. Certainly, they allowed lots of other commas to stand or the reading would've become somewhat difficult with all those runover sentences.
Again, what was the textual or hermeneutical rationale behind the removal of that specific comma, and for leaving behind all the others?
Specifically, did you know that there are six other verses in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus used this same expression, and a total of 72 instances throughout all the Gospels, but Luke 23:43 is THE ONLY ONE in which the NWT Translation Committee moved the comma, thereby changing the meaning of the expression (and also making the expression obvious and redundant).
Explain to us the reasons why this is so.
The comma was in the right place before the translators behind the NWT (and some Seventh Day Adventist versions) moved it. You are the one who needs to explain why.
~Theo
His body was in a tomb.
His soul was in Hell, the center of the earth, which would, until the resurrection, contain two compartments : Paradise and "Torments" (a place of burning punishment).
Christ descended into Hell, left our sins there after suffering ; then went through Paradise with the Keys of Hell and of Death, opening the door of Paradise personally and leading "captivity captive," the OT Saints whose souls were there until the Redemption, the "cutting off of Messiah" (Daniel ch. 9) and the Resurrection of Christ, which made the Third Heaven accessible.
This is what "the gates of Hell" not prevailing against the church of Matthew 16 is dealing with. The "Assembly" of the saints could not forever be kept confined in "Hell" (the lower parts of the earth, still containing Abraham's Bosome until then) -- the gates of Hell could NOT prevail against them when Christ with the keys of Hell and death opened the doors to let them out and lead them into the Third Heaven, God's immediate presence.
And more, and more . . .
“He had not been born again. He had not repented.”
Ah, an interesting point...Jesus was placed between the two thieves for a special reason. Here both had the opportunity to repent (to be born again, as it were).
“And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
(Luke 23:39-42)
The one thief railed on Him (Jesus), the other rebuked him (the first thief)...and it is clear to me that the second thief to speak repented...he recognized that this man next to him, Jesus, was who He said He was.
I believe that whereever the ‘comma’ is or is not to be, this thief was with Jesus, however ‘briefly’, when that day was done.
Of course, that opens another question...where is ‘Paradise’? I believe that ‘Paradise’ was a place where the Old Testiment saints, the ‘righteous’, were until this time. It would seem that this was a place where those in ‘Paradise’ and those in ‘the place of torment’ were not far apart (the rich man and Lazurus). I also believe, or would suggest that those in ‘Paradise’ were moved to a better place during those three days, and ‘Paradise’ ceased to exist.
All this could also get into a discussion about ‘Purgatory’...but I think I will leave that for another time...enough already :)
John Milton, of course, gave us ‘great insight’ into ‘Paradise’...”Paradise Lost”, and “Paradise Regained”. But we do not have to rely on Milton...God’s Word is sufficient for me. If there is anything surprising about John Milton, it is that he, a man of letters, authored this stuff while a civil servant for the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, a man, in my not so humble opinion, who will never know anything about ‘Paradise’, or what might have come after.
He was in hell freeing the captives that were free-able...many of them appeared in Jerusalem and I am sure freaked people out.
John Leland, you said it very well in your post here...I did not see this before posting my comments (No. 146) in this thread, but I do not disagree with you. You are correct. The Word is supportive of your comments. Thank you.
The Holy Scriptures, NT, leaving tradition in the dust and believing the actual words of Scripture in their contexts ; where local context requires support, then the preponderance of the Scriptures themselves is necessary, not the traditions of religious denominational teaching.
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