The 3 Scriptural Texts

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The 3 Scriptural Texts

Forum: Theological Expressions
Re:

Sanctissima/ Sono a casa sto avante de spiritus. (Thomas Lim)
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Did Jesus go to Hell? (SK)
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Where is Jesus between his death to ressurection? (Thomas Lim)
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According to John's gospel... (SK)
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Pls explain clearly (Thomas Lim)
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I'm asking for the answer to the question...are you answering or are you conducting a test quiz? :-) (SK)
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No...........=( (Thomas Lim)
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Thanks and some clarification. (SK)
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These scriptures may give you some idea. (True Light)
Date: 2001, Jul 09
From: Christopher Yip CKHY

Jesus did not descend into Hades (NT) aka Sheol (NT). His body was in the tomb but His spirit was in Paradise with God. The parable (you can take it as real if you like) of the rich man and Lazarus does not teach that Hades have two sections - one for the saved (Abraham's bosom) and another for the unsaved. This cannot be supported from Scriptures.
Abraham’s bosom. This is a phrase taken from the practice of reclining at meals, where the head of one lay on the bosom of another, and the phrase therefore denotes intimacy and friendship. The Jews had no doubt that Abraham was in paradise. To say that Lazarus was in his bosom was therefore the same as to say that he was admitted to heaven and made happy there.
Paradise is UP there while Hades is DOWN here, separated. The parable says Hades is far off from the abodes of the righteous: Lazarus was seen afar off; and there is a great gulf fixed between that and heaven.
Hades is where the spirits of the unsaved go awaiting the final resurrection and judgement.
On the other two texts, see the following.
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Where Was Jesus' Spirit When His Body Was in the Tomb? by Charles T. Buntin
The Misunderstood Passages
There are only two passages which can be construed to teach the “weekend in Hell” the-ory: 1 Pet 3:18-20 and Eph 4:8-10.
Let’s look at them one at a time.
1 Peter 3:18-20
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. [emphasis mine]
Let’s answer some questions about this passage which will help us understand it.
(1) Who are the “spirits in prison?” The answer is obvious from the context--those who were disobedient in the time of Noah. Are any others included in this verse? No. Are any righteous dead included in this passage? No. The only people mentioned are those who were disobe-dient in Noah’s time. If Christ did make a “trip to Hell,” the only people He spoke with were these.
(2) How did Christ preach to these “spirits in prison?” Does it tell us that He personally traveled to talk to them? Again, the answer is obvious from the context: it was “through the Spirit,” i.e., through the Holy Spirit, (1 Pet 3:18).
(3) If we buy the “trip to Hell” theory, what is Christ supposed to have said to these peo-ple? Did He offer them a second chance at salvation? Did He just go to gloat? No.
(4) How, when, and in what form was the message delivered to the “spirits in prison?” “Who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah.” To What were they disobedient? Well, study this verse:
2 Pet 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight peo-ple, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the un-godly; [emphasis mine]
I submit to you that the antediluvian “spirits in prison” were disobedient to the message sent to them through the preaching of Noah, and that Christ had, in the time of Noah, preached to them through the ministry of the Spirit (2 Pet 1:19-21). Christ had spoken to these people through the preaching of Noah, which the antediluvian world ignored. This passage is not talking about some “weekend in Hell,” but is comparing the time of Noah with Peter’s time, as the fol-lowing verses illustrate:
1 Pet 3:20-21 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuf-fering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. 21 There is also an antitype which now saves us; baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the an-swer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
"As to the old world, Christ sent his Spirit; gave warning by Noah. But though the patience of God waits long, it will cease at last. And the spirits of disobedient sin-ners, as soon as they are out of their bodies, are committed to the prison of hell, where those that despised Noah’s warning now are, and from whence there is no redemption. Noah’s salvation in the ark upon the water, which carried him above the floods, set forth the salvation of all true believers. That temporal salvation by the ark was a type of the eternal salvation of believers by baptism of the Holy Spirit." (Matthew Henry).
Ephesians 4:8-10
7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore He says: "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men." 9 (Now this, "He ascended"; what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
The common interpretation of this verse by those who support the “weekend in Hell” the-ory is this:
(1) “He led captivity captive”--that is, He loosed all of those poor Old Testament believers from Hell. Of course, this requires the development of an entire false cosmology about eternity.
(2) “Now this, ‘He ascended’; what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?” The common interpretation by the purveyors of this doctrine is that this means Christ went to Hell (the lower parts of the earth).
Dealing with the second part first, when Christ ascended, from where did He ascend? Did Christ ascend from Hell? No, from outside Jerusalem (Acts 1:9-11). What happened when He ascended? “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” Ten days after His ascension from outside Jerusalem, He gave the church the gift of the Spirit, and through that the gifts of the Spirit. This is talking about the only ascension of Christ mentioned in the Bible, that which is recorded in Acts 1:9-11. Now some may say, “But, to what does this “lower parts of the earth” refer? Some automatically assume that “lower parts” refers to Hell. But the use of the phrase in the Bible does not bear this out. There are only four other instances of this type of terminology which I could discover in the scriptures:
Psa 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Psa 63:9 But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
Is 44:23 Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
Ezek 32:24 "There is Elam and all her multitude, All around her grave, All of them slain, fallen by the sword, Who have gone down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, Who caused their terror in the land of the living; Now they bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit.
"The Hebrew phrase tahton ’erets to which the apostle’s… (the lower parts of the earth), answers, is used for the earth in opposition to heaven, Isaiah 44:23; probably for the grave in Psalms 63:10; as a poetical designation for the womb in Psalms 139:15; and for Hades or the invisible world, Ezekiel 32:24. Perhaps the majority of commentators take this last to be the meaning of the passage before us. They suppose the reference is to the descensus ad inferos, or to Christ’s “de-scending into hell.” But in the first place this idea is entirely foreign to the meaning of the passage in the Psalm on which the apostle is commenting. In the second place, there as here, the only descent of which the context speaks is opposed to the ascending to heaven. ‘He that ascended to heaven is he who first descended to earth.’ In the third place, this is the opposition so often expressed in other places and in other forms of expression, as in John 3:13, “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven.” John 6:38, “I came down from heaven.” John 8:14, “I know whence I came and whither I go.” John 16:28, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” The expression of the apostle therefore means, “the lower parts, viz. the earth.” The genitive is the common genitive of apposition. Compare Acts 2:19, where the heaven above is opposed to the earth beneath; and John 8:23." (Charles Hodge. Commentary on Ephesians).
While Ps 63:9 may be inferred to mean Hell, it is by no means certain. The other two references refer (a) to the womb as a metaphor, and (b) to lower elevations as opposed to moun-tains. There is little to go on, therefore, but certainly nothing to suggest that we may interpret “lower parts” to mean Christ went to Hell. I believe that the descent into the “lower parts of the earth” refers to the entire Humiliation of Christ, followed by His triumph. Indeed, if one compares Eph 4:8-10 with Phil 2:5-11, the relationship between the two passages becomes obvious. Christ descended to earth in humility, but He ascended to heaven in victory. For a masterful exe-gesis of this passage, I refer the reader to Christian Unity: an Exposition of Ephesians 4:1-16, by Dr. D. M. Lloyd-Jones, pages 156-161. Dr. Lloyd-Jones concludes his explanation of this pas-sage by saying:
“This exposition and explanation avoids all confusion and unnecessary speculation about what our Lord may of may not have done after His death and before His resurrection. These speculations have crept into our creeds, but they have no real scriptural warrant.”
(3) “He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.” So, what does it mean that He "descended?" He “came down” when He came to Earth, to be born in the womb of the Virgin Mary--See also John 17:5.
Could the Ephesians 4 passage mean that Jesus took a weekend excursion to Hell? Only if you bring that meaning with you, it is not found in the exposition of the passage.
So where was His Spirit While His Body was in the Tomb?
Well, let's let Jesus Himself tell us . . .
He was in Paradise
Luke 23:43 And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."
Now there are some people who will try to say that "paradise" is something other than the Heaven where God is. However, only other two instances of "paradise" are in the Bible, and they obviously apply to Heaven:
2 Cor 12:4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Jesus' Spirit was with the Father
Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, "Father, 'into Your hands I commit My spirit.' "Having said this, He breathed His last.
Was the Father in hell? I don't think so!
Furthermore, when the Cross was finished, the sacrifice was finished, and there was no more suffering to be done
Jn 19:30..It is finished!"
The only thing the Devil had in the three days the Body of Christ was in the tomb was a headache--because he knew Christ’s Soul and Spirit were in the presence of the Father, and they were not in HELL!
And the Devil, unlike the TV preachers, had heard Jesus say, "It is finished!"
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Christopher