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]
Excellent and pithy point!
That makes more sense. Why would I need to say what day I was saying something? I’m saying it today, not tomorrow or yesterday.
Yes, but not under judgment. They will have been for a thousand years the consort of Her Husband, Who will never leave Her nor forsake Her. Thus doubtlessly they will be required to observe the sentences pronounced before the great White Throne.
But my presumptuous view is that they, never leaving the Presence of Her Christ, and the OT saints, and the Friends of The Bride as well, will be in great tears because of seeing the results of their failure in earthly life to fully serve The Lord in bringing the generative saving Word to all they might have but did not -- thus many souls heading for eternal unremitting fiery torment, in a scabrous, putrid, resurrected corrupted body.
Many, many shall not have been given the opportunity to firmly reject God's carefully transmitted glorious Gospel.
But God shall eventually wipe away all tears --
Under judgment there also will be many phony religionists - many, who have already spent a long time in Sheol/Hell - will say to Him in That Day,"Lord -- LORD! -- have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name have done many wonderful works?" And then He will profess unto them, "I never knew you-all, depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
Time, gentlemen, please!
So the translator can look at the context to choose where or even if to place the comma here in Luke.
Jesus’ words were certainly not casual but deeply reassuring to the man asking to be remembered favorably, “When you come into your kingdom”.
NO
Do you have any scripture asaying he is?
Sorry; the text does NOT say at all where they were LED.
Can't you 'quote' from the Bible?
That is what Protestants believe.
but though these passages speak of a judgment after death, neither the context nor the force of the words proves that the sacred writer had in mind a judgment distinct from that at the end of the world.
That's strange; since the sacrifices at the Temple were offered outSIDE of the Holy Place.
Sorry; but the SCRIPTURE says otherwise: The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
The Catholic Encyclopedia quoted by Markbsnr contains 10 Bible citations. Most Protestants would consider the argument in that context rather than see the word "Catholic" as a disqualifier.
Have it your way. No debating with your view today, nor with anyone else who subscribes to it. Ciao.
Well, that's not in the bible.
Perhaps you are confusing Jesus with Solomon. In Ecclesistes 9:5 he wrote:
"The living at least know they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, nor are they remembered."
“I say to you today (or this day)” is a Hebrew idiom that expresses certainty. You’ll find it used this way in other passages of the Bible. For instance, in Deuteronomy 30:18 we find, “I announce to you today that you shall surely perish. . .” or in Acts 20:26, “I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men.”
Further, “paradise” is only found in two other places in the New Testament and both times refers to being in God’s presence (2 Cor 12: 2-4, Rev. 2:7). Since Jesus, by his own words, said he would be in the grave for three days, and after resurrection told Mary and others that he had not yet ascended to his Father, it is difficult to accept that on the day of the crucifixion he took the thief to paradise (into God’s presence). The notion that Jesus meant a sort of “holding pen” for the righteous dead until Jesus ascended to heaven is a concept out of Greek mythology.
LC, what do you do with what Paul wrote tot he Thessalonians then? When Christ returns whom is it that Christ has accompanying him so that the dead in Christ rise first in bodies, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air ... ?
Can you explain what you mean here?
Sorry; the text does NOT say at all where they were LED. (Elsie)
OK, but other Bible verses do:
(1) So where did He lead the occupants of Paradise?
(2) So where could He have led them?
(3) To what sphere could they have gone?
(4) There are only four places where a human soul could be located:
(a) on the earth, where they could not just wander about willy-nilly without a body, this created earth of embodied soul/spirit humans; (b) Sheol/Hell, the hot, waterless residence of souls (like the 'rich man' of Lk. 16:19) formerly unrepentant in the human sphere;
(c) Paradise, or Abraham's bosom, the comfortable residence of the souls of repentant believers (like the 'beggar' of Lk. 16:20); and
(d) the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2), the residence of The God and His angels, the location of the True Tabernacle (Heb. 8:1-5), where before reconciliation with/by The Father had been effected, none of the souls of his human enemies had access.
(5) Jesus
(a) would not lead the repentant believing saved-under-the-first-covenant souls from Paradise into Sheol/Hell, because he would not go there himself nor would he consign them into punishment already removed;
(b) could not lead them into Paradise, because they were already there;
(c) could not lead them into our earthly sphere without a body, whence the would need to go through this whole temporal experience again and be subjected to a second physical death (Heb. 9:27); and
(d) could lead them into heaven, but only after being restored together with His spirit into a humanoid body, so that as a resurrected human High Priest He could enter into a transaction with The Father to redeem the repentant souls and gain their entrance into the third heaven.
(6) This He did, by
(a) returning to this earthly sphere;
(b)joining with His spirit returned from the hand of the Father (Lk. 23:46) into a glorified (bloodless) human body (as seen by MM, Mk. 16:9, Jn. 20:14);
(c) refusing to be defiled by her touch prior to his bodily ascension (Jn. 20:17);
(d) ascended bodily into the third heaven;
(e) entered into a successful redemption/reconciliation transaction with The Father (prefigured by the earthly temple procedures) (Lev. 4; Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:8-13, 9:5-28, 10:12-14); and
(f) thus clearing the way for entrance of the sanctified souls from Paradise (Heb. 2:14-17).
(7) Furthermore, having won and been given all authority (exousia) in Heaven and upon earth (Mt. 28:18) through vanquishing the Devil -- the god of this earth -- he saw fit to exercise that authority by completely separating Paradise (and its contents) from the Pit and joining it to the third heaven (2 Cor.12:2,4) so that saved, redeemed, justified, and sanctified humans could be continually spiritually accepted in union with the seated Christ (Eph. 1:6).
(8) And when confessed (1 John 1:9) we have access into the Holiest of The Heaven by the Blood of The Christ (Heb. 10:19-20, as do the souls who had gone to the Paradise, and were led into Heaven by Jesus.
Q. E. D.
Have you studied out that event, Elsie? A thorough perusing and belief in the Word will help you get the right position on this, eh?
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