Posted on 03/31/2018 8:57:29 AM PDT by Salvation
Christ Preaching to the Dead, Duccio (1308-11)
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 excerpt from a second century sermon as well as this meditation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday (ca. 2nd century A.D.):
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.”
Nothing could be more beautiful than that line addressed to Adam and Eve: “I am your God, who for your sake have become your Son.”
St Ephrem the Deacon also attests to this descent among the dead and describes it rather colorfully:
Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strongroom and scattered all its treasure. (Sermo de Domino nostro, 3-4. 9: Opera edit. Lamy, 1, 152-158. 166-168)
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).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Christ’s descent to the dead (excerpts from CCC # 632-635):
[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 [cf. 1 Pet 3:18-19]. Scripture calls the 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 [cf. Phil 2:10; Acts 2:24; Rev 1:18; Eph 4:9; Pss 6:6; 88:11-13].
Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer [cf. Ps 89:49; 1 Sam 28:19; Ezek 32:17-32; Luke 16:22-26]. “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior … whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell” [Roman Catechism I, 6, 3].
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” [Heb 2:14-15; cf. Acts 3:15].
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” [Rev 1:18; Phil 2:10].
Here is a recording of a sermon I preached on this topic: Where is Jesus Now.
Paradise was the holding place where those who had died before Christ were waiting for him. Paradise does not mean heaven.
Jesus is the first one into heaven at his Ascension.
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Paradise is the bosom of Abraham.
It is the place where the Kehillah waits for the day of Trumpets.
What is the big deal if it doesn’t fit into a 3 day weekend?
It doesn’t change the message.
Coming up with “God’s time” is really kind of a cop out that I used to get in Sunday school when I asked those questions.
Again, its the message. Not debating on when check out time is.
Are you trying to tell Catholics what to believe?
It doesn’t work.
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Don’t forget the “first fruits” that arose and went with him.
And the thread is about Christ’s descent into hell — not about which days are so important to some people.
Thank you for your message.
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I understand, Catholics will never accept the word of Yehova until it comes upon them “as a thief.”
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Descent to the Bosom of Abraham, not “hell.”
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The times were adequately explained in the gospels.
Passover began at sunset on “wednesday” on the Roman calendar, leaving a preparation day between, then the regular sabbath.
It was exactly as Yeshua said it would be, three complete days. (and nothing ever happens on “sunday.”)
Your post was truly a cop-out, but one that has been used for almost two millennia.
Catholics got the word DIRECTLY from Jesus....they were there at the time.
Wow. I was agreeing with you.
Personally I could not care less about the whole thing.
If we reckon time as the Jews did the three days works out just fine.
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Disappointing that yo0u do not understand this, but the so-called “catholic church” was a 4th century invention by Eusebius, and his unbeliever emporer Constantine.
Literally nothing they foisted on the world is from scripture.
They persecuted those that followed the way that Yeshua taught the Notzerim that was the basic Torah based worship of the covenant that was presented at the first Shavuot at Sinai. (the people that really got taught by Yeshua)
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Whack-a-doodle made up fake history. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Wrong, fake news.
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First, I was not trying to diminish you, but calling out how we have been scammed by the those that teach how to “cop out” on the scriptures.
You should care, because the perfect reality that is taught by the unadorned scriptures leads us to the “instructions in righteousness” that show us the path Yeshua taught that leads to eternal life.
What the churches teach is far from that path Yeshua taught. Reading from the KJV without the italicised words that the changers added will get you close, if you can do it without the nonsense that “christianity” tries to add.
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What minuscule, bizarro cult teaches you that swill?
Tagline
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Are you defending Satan’s Fake Pope?
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The unadorned word of Yehova.
I’m aware of the hatred of it you cling to as you’ve posted here so many times.
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