The Bible
gives us a glimpse of what happened after Christ’s death on the Cross, and what
it meant for the Church, and in Heaven.
In Part 1, I want to look at what happened on earth and the netherworld,
after his death. We have some biblical
references, and also some creedal statements that the Church confesses. We learn from this that Jesus’ death wasn’t
the “end” as we think of the earthly life we live. For now, we’ll pass over the resurrection,
saving that for Easter Sunday. There
were some immediate physical things, and there were also some mystical things
that followed.
“Now
there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a
member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their
decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went
to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a
tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of
Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning.
The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb
and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and
ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment” (Luke
23:50-56).
All four
Gospels share this story, with some minor differences. John’s Gospel tells us that Nicodemus came
alongside Joseph of Arimathea to carry the body to the tomb and prepare spices
for the body after Passover was over.
Jesus died at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, and Passover would have begun by 5:00
p.m., so they had little time to get Jesus into the tomb and roll the stone
across it. John’s account does not
mention the presence of the women. Luke
does not name the women, but Matthew and Mark both state that Mary Magdalene,
and the other Mary, the mother of Joses.[1]
Both of these had been at the Crucifixion, and they were witnesses, along with
Joseph and Nicodemus, that Jesus was placed in the tomb and the stone was
rolled over the entrance, and sealed.
We know
from scripture that when a person dies, their soul lives on, though the
physical organ of the body is dead. With
Jesus, it’s a bit more complicated.
Jesus was both human and divine, fully united in both natures. Upon death, his human nature died, but his
divine nature could never die. Still,
the living soul of Jesus was not in his body anymore, even as our soul is not
in our body upon death. Where was Jesus’
soul? He had told the thief on the
cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise”, which tells me that
Jesus’ soul and his divine nature were in heaven. Yet, there’s more to consider.
The Apostles Creed, in part, makes this
statement:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day, he rose again from the dead;
Jesus
submitted his life to end in death – death on the cross. He died a real death,
a physical death. There were heresies in
the early church that said that God abandoned the physical Jesus and rescued
the divine Jesus before his death. That
is false. Another heresy said that Jesus
didn’t die, he only appeared to die.
That is false. We know that those
are false, and have some hint of what happened after Jesus' death, and what the
Creed means by “he descended into hell” by what the Apostle Peter wrote.
“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 because
they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah,
while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were
brought safely through water”
(1 Peter 3:18-20).
Christ’s death, as Peter reminds us, is propitiatory and vicarious – “suffer
once for sins”. Jesus' death fully
accomplished all that God needed to make unrighteous humans into righteous
saints.
Why did
Jesus go to hell? Peter takes us back to
Genesis 6, when “spirit” beings sought to cohabit with human beings, and God
sent a deluge upon the world to destroy all but the eight people in Noah’s
family. Let’s first note that Peter says
Jesus went to “the spirits in prison”.
The Creed says, “Jesus descended into hell”. Hell is like a prison. The Hebrew word for Hell is “Sheol”
and Hell in Greek is “Hades”.
Both meant “the place of the dead”.
Yet, Jewish Rabbis didn’t teach that there was only one dimension of
Hell – which was suffering. Instead,
they taught that Sheol, or Hades, was divided into two parts. In one of Jesus’ parables, he speaks of a
separation between those who abide in the good side of Hades and those who
abide in the suffering side of Hades.
“There
was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted
sumptuously every day.
And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even
the dogs came and licked his sores.
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The
rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up
his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out,
‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his
finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received
your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is
comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and
you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here
to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us”’ (Luke 16:19-26).
Peter is
referring to a deeper dimension of Hell when he refers to a “prison” that held
those spirit beings who came to destroy all of humanity. In his second letter, Peter adds this information:
“… God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and
committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment” (2
Peter 2:4).
The word translated Hell is a different word, “tartaroō, which is “the
deepest abyss of hell”. One thought is
that Jesus went to proclaim to them his victory over Sin and death – they were
defeated and mankind was restored. The
other dimension of Jesus’ descent into Hell follows the theme of releasing the
souls of the faithfully departed who awaited Jesus’ death and eventual
resurrection and ascension.
He descended among the dead. His
soul, separated from His body, joined the holy souls awaiting the Savior in the
Land of the Dead, including the thief on the cross who would join Jesus in
“paradise”. His descent among the dead brought to completion the proclamation
of the Gospel and liberated those holy souls who had long awaited their
Redeemer. The Gates of Heaven were now open, and these holy souls entered
everlasting happiness in God’s presence. (We’ll look at that tomorrow in part
2). Jesus did not deliver those souls damned to eternal punishment in hell nor
did He destroy hell as such; they remained in that state and place of damnation
begun at the time of their particular judgment.
What Jesus did upon his death was
release those awaiting heaven. Why were
they waiting? Jesus had to be “He is
the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead so that he might come to have first place in everything”(Colossians 1:18).
The Apostle Paul also wrote, “Therefore it is said, "When he
ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his
people." (When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but
that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended
is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill
all things) (Ephesians 4:8-10).
An ancient Homily of the early
Church for Holy Saturday captured this event:
"The whole earth keeps 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 our first parent, 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 the captives of Adam and Eve, He who is both 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 held a prisoner in hell. Rise
from the dead, for I am the life of the dead."
Peace
[1] “There were also women looking on from a
distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the
younger and of Joses, and Salome”(Mark 15:40).
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