WHERE DID JESUS GO AFTER HIS DEATH?
There is confusion about where the Lord Jesus Christ went following His death on the cross. Consider this scenario.
By NiteOwlDave
niteowldave@gmail.com
Let’s trace the travels of Messiah Jesus from the cross when He died.
Christ told the thief on the cross who believed in Him, “Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” So, Jesus and the forgiven sinner went to a place called Paradise, which the Bible also calls Abraham’s Bosom. They stayed there for three days.
The body of Jesus did not decay. Psalms 16:10 says, “Thou (God) wilt not leave my soul in Sheol, neither wilt thou permit thine Holy One to see corruption.”
In the Bible, Paradise and Abraham’s Bosom appear to be the same place. Since the Bible also says that Christ went to Sheol, we assume Sheol has two parts – one where the righteous dead were temporarily housed in comfort and one where the unrighteous dead are tormented and will remain in this Hell until they are cast into the Lake of Fire after the final judgment.
God’s home, Heaven, is the eternal destination of forgiven sinners. God’s temporary “Heaven”, Paradise, means park, and it is where those people went who were saved before the Lord Jesus Christ opened the doors of Heaven with His sacrificial blood.
Salvation always was, and continues to be, by faith and not works. Before Christ, the blood of sacrificed animals by Jewish priests covered sin.
Animal sacrifices represented the future and final sacrifice of Christ on the cross that the Jews could not foresee. These sacrifices demonstrated their faith in God by obeying His orders.
When the Jews were held in captivity and not physically able sacrifice, God saw their hearts and forgave their sins on the basis of their faith in Him.
God rejecters went to Sheol or Hell. In Luke 16:23, Hell is described as a place of torment. There was an impassable gulf between Paradise and Sheol-Hell. Luke 16:26 says, “…between us and you is a great gulf fixed…”
HERE IS A POSSIBLE ORDER OF EVENTS
1.Christ “dismissed His spirit” on the cross.
2. While His body was in the grave between His death and resurrection, His spirit descended into Paradise where He remained with the “captives.”
3. He returned to earth and re-entered His body at His resurrection. The souls of some of those from Paradise also re-entered their bodies.
Matthew 27:52-53 says, “The graves were opened and many bodies of the saints (true God believers) were raised and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into Jerusalem and appeared to many.”
4. Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene in the Garden Tomb area where He advised her that He had not yet ascended to his Father. Jesus also met with Cleopas and one other disciple who is not identified on the road to Emmaus.
5. Christ ascended to Heaven with all those from Paradise.
6. Luke 24:13-45 tells us that on the evening of the resurrection, Christ reappeared alone to his disciples gathered in Jerusalem. Since He had already ascended to his Father, He now told them in to “handle me and see.”
7.Forty days after His resurrection, Christ ascended to Heaven.
8.Ten days after His ascension, the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, revealed Himself through Peter to 120 Jewish followers of Christ in an upper room.
This marked the launching of the Christian church.
Shortly thereafter, the Holy Spirit appeared to a gathering of Gentiles in Caesarea. Through the teaching of the apostle Peter, they believed that Jesus was the resurrected Messiah.
Thus, Peter used the “keys” given is him by Christ to preach the Gospel and unlock the door of salvation to the Gentiles.
Matthew 16:19 says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven.”
The Roman Catholic Church wrongly teaches that its pope holds the keys.
No way is that true. The true “church” is the Body of believers, the worldwide collective, whose faith is in what Christ completed at the cross when He shed His redeeming blood and, three days later, rose from the dead.
It is not the RCC, nor any other denomination that holds power. Christ alone is the head of His church.
NOTES
Because Christ paid our sin debt in full and arose from the dead, those who are saved and die today go directly to Heaven. The souls of the Christ rejecters go directly to Hell, forever.
Each of us, and not God, personally determine where we will spend eternity. We choose to accept Christ or reject Him. Heaven and Hell are fixed destinations.
There is no biblical support for a sin-cleansing place such as Purgatory.
