Posted on 04/07/2012 3:40:18 PM PDT by NYer
Where is Christ after he dies on Friday afternoon and before he rises on Easter Sunday? Both Scripture and Tradition answer this question. Consider the following from a Second Century Sermon and also a mediation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
An Ancient Sermon:
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.” [From an Ancient Holy Saturday Homily ca 2nd Century]
Nothing could be more beautiful than that line addressed to Adam and Eve: I am your God, who, for your sake, became your Son.”
Scripture also testifies to Christ’s descent to the dead and what he did: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison….For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. (1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 4:6).
Consider also this from the Catechism on Christ’s descent to the dead, which I summarize and excerpt from CCC # 631-635
[The] first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell [is] that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead.
But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there [1 Peter 3:18-19; 1 Peter 4:6; Heb. 13:20]. Scripture calls [this] abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew, or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God [1 Peter 3:18-19].
Such [was] the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they awaited the Redeemer: It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior …whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”[cf Psalms 89:49; 1 Sam. 28:19; Ezek 32:17ff; Luke 16:22-26]
Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
[So] the gospel was preached even to the dead. The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”[1 Peter 4:6] Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying, destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” [John 5:25; Mt 12:40; Rom 10:7; Eph 4:9].
Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”[Heb 2:14-15; Acts 3:15]
Many of us share beliefs like this. Many more than one wowuld think by glancing at the Religion Forum run of the mill posts.
Happy Pasch!
Only the believers could see them. The Pharisees could not see them.
That didn't take place for some time after Christ's resurrection.
“One of the Gospels talks about the people rising from their tombs and roaming around Jerusalem, but not everyone could see them.”
What occurred there is connected with an earthquake that opened the tombs and must be viewed in the context of when Christ was to pay the ransom for mankind, returning to heaven.
But WHY?
I fully expect to SLEEP until the Last Trump calls ME forth from the tomb; to the Great White Throne Judgement.
Why should the earlier folks do any different?
Matthew was sure. Jesus was sure (Luke 24:46) who are the doubters?
“TODAY you shall be with Me in paradise.”
That’s almost what he said.
And Guinness. Don't forget about Guinness.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
But in all seriousness, we are called on the Last Day to appear before Him. But we must differentiate the particular Judgement from the general Judgement. They are different and happen at different times. The particular Judgement happens immediately after death.
Exactly! The placement of the comma in English is arbitrary, and where you put it changes the meaning completely.
The place of the dead was called in the Old Testament by the Hebrew word “Sheol.” It had two parts, the place of the unbelieving, unrighteous dead, and the place of the believing, righteous dead, that Jesus called “Paradise.” The division between the two parts is described in Jesus’ story of Lazarus who had died, but couldn’t even give a man who had tormented and despised him in his earthly life a drink of water.
Jesus went to Sheol when He died. He preached to the righteous dead, and led them out of that place, ultimately taking them to heaven to be with Him after His resurrection when he ascended and sat down at the right hand of the Father. Hence Paul’s later “absent from the body, present with the Lord” formulation. Since the Lord’s resurrection and ascension all believers have gone immediately into the Lord’s presence, without any detours, where they await the physical bodily resurrection of the believers at the return of Christ to the earth.
The unrighteous dead remain in Sheol, awaiting the end and the White Throne judgement, after which Sheol, and all its remaining inhabitants, will be cast into the Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
I don’t have time this evening to look up all the references, but in short, that’s what the Bible teaches.
“A. generally what has been passed down to us from the Apostles. B. Can you please prove this? Just one example should suffice.”
Of course since the resurrection is being discussed.
Mary, Jesus’ mother. It is Catholic dogma that she was “assumed” bodily into heaven after her death however as Paul makes clear in 1 Cor. 15, flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom and that the faithful like Mary would be resurrected as spirits.
“I don’t have time this evening to look up all the references, but in short, that’s what the Bible teaches.”
I’ll welcome your comments when you do have time.
***to the Great White Throne Judgement.***
I want the Bema rewarding judgement seat. The GREAT WHITE THRONE judgment is reserved for the unsaved.
****My error? I don’t care to hear from the Book of Ruy Dias de Bivar, but thanks anyway.*****
Well hows about from the KJV!
Eph 4:7 ¶But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
]Eph 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Eph 4:9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH?
Eph 4:10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
See the prophecy in Psalms 68:18
1Pe 3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1Pe 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
******
1Pe 3:22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
The harrowing of hell?
Broadly speaking, but you use a lot of words with theological freight.
OK, of those whom He brought to Heaven with Him at His appearance after His resurrection as High Priest (Eph. 4:8-9, Jn. 20:16-17), who was it that He did not save? Who was it that saved themselves by their own efforts, if any? Hmmm?
You shouldn't have been napping -- you missed it. Stay awake when proper theology is being taught. The shouting may have been for trying to get your attention. (smile)
Wrong.
There are 3 kinds of life, and 3 kinds of death. Didn't you know that physical death is the separation of the soul and spirit from the body? You have a body that will die and corrupt, but you were given a soul and spirit that will never die.
Here is a brief description of these facts, for yourself and others:
Be advised.
If death is as you define it then there should be no Scriptures that speak of the soul dying or being destroyed.
Is that the case? Do you know...how the Bible uses the term soul and spirit?
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