Posted on 04/07/2012 3:40:18 PM PDT by NYer
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 from a Second Century Sermon and also a mediation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
An Ancient Sermon:
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.” [From an Ancient Holy Saturday Homily ca 2nd Century]
Nothing could be more beautiful than that line addressed to Adam and Eve: I am your God, who, for your sake, became your Son.”
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).
Consider also this from the Catechism on Christ’s descent to the dead, which I summarize and excerpt from CCC # 631-635
[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 [1 Peter 3:18-19; 1 Peter 4:6; Heb. 13:20]. Scripture calls [this] 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 [1 Peter 3:18-19].
Such [was] the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they awaited the Redeemer: It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior …whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”[cf Psalms 89:49; 1 Sam. 28:19; Ezek 32:17ff; Luke 16:22-26]
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” [John 5:25; Mt 12:40; Rom 10:7; Eph 4:9].
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.”[Heb 2:14-15; Acts 3:15]
He descended into hell. Victorious. With the keys of life and death and hell. To prove to those there He had the power, that death was not victorious over Him, and to take those in Abraham’s bosom - up to Heaven with Him.
On the third day, He arose again, in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
The “Paradise” was not heaven. It was a waiting place, sort of a limbo, where the good souls were waiting.
Many people make this error, so don’t feel bad.
Are you trying to tell Catholics what to believe?
Are you trying to say that the Bible is not true?
***...to save those who had the bad luck to die before He did.***
Here is your error. Jesus went to Hades to deliver up the righteous dead, not the unsaved dead.
Move the comma from, “Truly I say, today you will be with me in paradise,” to “Truly I say today, you will be with me in paradise.” Makes a big difference.
If God has always been, why would He have permitted the "just" to go to hell and suffer?
“Even regular folks don't lay dead in a grave.”
Says who? Not the Scriptures since if the regular (righteous and unrighteous) folks weren't dead they wouldn't need to be resurrected from death.
Catholics will believe as they will, I was pointing out the Bible says which often conflicts Catholic teachings.
Is this one of your “gotcha” questions?
Pete was wondering about catching fish.
Are we SURE?
No one NOTICED that He was out of the grave until the third day.
Remember what He told the repentant thief?
TODAY you shall be with Me in paradise."
A. generally what has been passed down to us from the Apostles. B. Can you please prove this? Just one example should suffice.
“What do the Mormons say about it?”
i’m sure if you asked one of their missionaries they would be glad to discuss it with you. [non-sarc]
My error? I don’t care to hear from the Book of Ruy Dias de Bivar, but thanks anyway.
“Give us a Book, chapter and verse, will you?”
Here, I’ll give you a nudge: Revelation 22:18-19,
“For I testify unto every ... If any man shall add unto
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
This, I have been taught and believed all my life. Still do.
We share a common belief there. I'm Baptist.
I’m guessing the reason no one is providing any biblical authority for the position that Jesus actually journeyed down to Hell (like Herakles to Hades) after having been crucified and having died, is because it simply doesn’t exist.
It’s just something passed down from generation-to-generation and people say, “Well, that’s what I was taught so that’s what I believe.”
Well; it seems that we will be disagreeing about this until the SECOND Coming. (Don’t tell the MORMONs)
But the question that bugs me is, “What was Jesus WEARING after the Resurrection?”
The soldiers took away the scarlet robe they’d placed on Him and replaced His own clothes on Him... MT 27:31
Then, after the crucifixion, they gambled for His clothes... MT 27:35
Then Joseph wrapped His body with clean linen... MT 27:60
Then, after the resurrection, Peter saw the linen strips; lying by themselves... LK 24:12 & JN 20:6
Thus my question.
The first is true, but the second is unfounded. Matt 27:52-53
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