Kingdom Ready Blog

With last Sunday being “Resurrection Day” or “Easter,” it has caused me to take the time to reflect upon Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, and ponder the question, “Where did Jesus go when he died on the cross?” 

I Corinthians 15:20, 23  plainly tells us that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep … but each in his own order:  Christ the first fruits, after that, those who are Christ’s at his coming.”  In other words, we can safely figure that whatever happened to Jesus first, will happen to us later.
Some people assume that Jesus went to heaven for the three days between the time of his death and his resurrection.  Some people think so because of Luke 23:43 when Jesus says, “Truly I say to you today you shall be with me in paradise.”  They tell me that this obviously means that Jesus will see the other man who is dying on another cross beside him, that very day in paradise.  The problem with that is two-fold.  One, they take this verse out of context.  In the preceding verse, the thief on the cross is making a request of Jesus, “Remember me when you come in your kingdom!”  The thief knew that Jesus’ kingdom was yet to come and it’s location would be here on a newly restored earth (a.k.a. ‘paradise’), where Jesus would be King of the Jews (and every tribe and nation) reigning on the throne of David out of Jerusalem.  He wasn’t asking Jesus if he’d “see him in heaven!”  Not only that, there were no commas in the original text, so we can either read it, “Truly I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise,” or that “today you shall be with me.”

The second-part of this problem, is that we know for certain that “today” Jesus did NOT see this man in heaven upon their deaths, because later, after Jesus is resurrected from the dead, he tells Mary in John 20:17, “Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”  Jesus had yet to ascend to heaven to sit at God’s right hand.  He has been resurrected from the dead, yet at this point, clearly hasn’t been to heaven.  The disciples will later witness his ascension to the heavens, in Acts 1:9-11.

Was the man on the cross beside him in paradise waiting for him to appear up in heaven, when he got there?  Was there any other Old Testament ‘Greats’ like Abraham, Isaac, Moses, or David, in heaven too?  For if this is where paradise is, and where people go after they die, would we not assume they would be there also?  This is not the case.  In fact, Acts 2:29-36 tells us that David died, and was buried in his tomb, and is still there buried with his forefathers in the grave or sheol.  It was not David who was exalted and ascended into heaven, but Jesus, the Lord Messiah.  So, we can conclude that no one is in heaven right now, except God, His Son Jesus, and the angels.  Acts 3:20-21 tells us that Jesus will remain in heaven, at the right hand of God until the period of restoration of all things, which God spoke of through his prophets in the Old Testament scriptures.

So, if Jesus did not go to heaven when he died, others suppose Jesus went to hell based on Acts 2:27, 31 “Because Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Thy Holy One to undergo decay… he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades nor did His flesh suffer decay.”  When people read “hades,” they think of the modern terminology of a hell, somewhere under the earth, where dead people’s souls go to burn in torture, without dying, and without burning up.  However, the Bible’s “Hades” is  more accurately defined as ‘gravedom’ or “the grave” or the place of the dead.  It is definitely not paradise, nor is it the “gehenna fire” or the “lake of fire” (mentioned in Revelation 20:14) where the wicked will be cast upon their resurrection of the dead at the judgment of Christ on the earth (which is the resurrection Daniel, the prophet speaks of in Daniel 12:2).  Jesus was not abandoned to the grave, but God raised him from the dead on the third day.  Hades is the earth, the grave, or the tomb where Jesus was buried.

Jesus likens his three days of being dead, to Jonah’s “three days and night in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”  Matthew 12:40.  Jesus was in the grave when he was dead, as mundane or boring as this may sound to our conditioned ears and minds which have been raised to believe we’ll see some action when we are dead, whether it be with harps & celebrating (heaven) or torture, fire & pitchforks (hell).  Rather, in the Bible, Jesus likens the death state to that of being asleep, just as when he speaks of Lazarus’s death in John 11:11, 13, 14:  “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awaken him out of sleep…Lazarus is dead.”  We NEVER hear this terminology anymore, for it has been replaced with “they are in a better place now.”

When Jesus died, he was buried in his tomb, and just like being asleep, he was awakened from death, to eternal life.  He was neither in heaven, nor in hell, as our western culture tends to believe and propagate, but rather, the Scriptures teach us that he was dead.  He ceased to have any thoughts or activity for three days and nights, as he slept the sleep of the dead in the “abyss” or sheol (grave) of the earth.  Then, God awakened him to immortality with a resurrected, imperishable, glorified body which we too, hope to inherit “at his coming!”  Our reward, the Bible tells us repeatedly, is on that day (the day of Christ’s return to the earth, everyone at the same time…not individually as each person dies and floats up to the pearly gates, as you, too, may have supposed before you read this blog!).  Our hope is the resurrection from the dead and the return of Christ.  These two events are intertwined and will usher forth an everlasting kingdom in which we will be entering with our newly resurrected bodies, for if we are not clothed with our immortal, righteous, perfected bodies, we certainly cannot inherit this promised land!

The more I study this concept, the more clearly it becomes of what I am to have faith in God for, in fulfilling His promise to me.  This is what I look forward to and hope you see clearly, if not fully now, as if in a mirror dimly, but then face to face:  “So man lies down and does not rise, until the heavens be no more.  He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.  Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol that Thou wouldst set a limit for me!  If a man dies, will he live again?  All the days of my struggle I will wait until my change comes.”  And that change will come, in the twinkling of an eye!  “And as for me, I know my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth.  Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold and whom my eyes shall see and not another.”  (Job 14:12-14; 19:25-27) Clearly, I will be seeing God, on the earth, in my flesh (resurrected body), with eyes to see and a brain to process my thoughts.  And then God will finally dwell with mankind!  There is life after death!  Real honest to goodness, living and breathing life, standing on two very real legs upon a newly restored earth, seeing with my perfect vision my Almighty God, Savior, Redeemer, Rock, Shield, Creator of the Universe, Ancient of Days, my Adonai YHWH, the one and only living God.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying,

“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men,

and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people,

and God Himself shall be among them.” 

Revelation 21:3