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In the second, concluding part to this edited 2013 blog post, the faithful are given great reasons to be encouraged about our destination at the death of the body as well as inspired to praise the Lord Jesus Christ with all of the saints now in Heaven for the outworking benefits of His death, burial and resurrection that saves and sets His people free in thorough fulfillment of Matthew 16:16-18!
Originally Posted April 21, 2013
According to the apostle Peter, the Lord while disembodied did not just “chill out” in paradise, but also labored preaching. He preached the Gospel to a specific group of imprisoned disembodied spirits who were the lawless human beings that perished by God’s judgment in the global flood of Noah’s day (Genesis 7:17-24; 1 Peter 3:18-4:6). He also heralded to the saints in paradise that moving day had come and they were yet another step closer to permanent resurrection as a result of His finished work on Calvary and imminent, triumphant resurrection to immortal glory (Job 14:13-14)!
It was all so sudden; God’s long awaited Deliverer announced in the hearing of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15) and promised Messiah affirmed to Abraham (Genesis 22:18; Galatians 3:16) at that moment stood in the midst of the saints under the earth! No doubt all were joyful beyond measure to greet the Lord upon His arrival and hear the good news of His once and for all sacrifice providing eternal atonement for the sins they had committed while in the body; sins that had kept them from dwelling in the immediate presence of God in Heaven (Job 14:15-17; Romans 3:21-26; Hebrews 10:1-10).
Now, as a result of His successful mission Christ was proclaiming liberty from confinement in Hades and victory over Satan (Isaiah 61:1; Ephesians 1:7-10; Colossians 2:13-15). In so doing, He spoke of His impending resurrection not only with the promise theirs was yet to follow His own at a time to be announced by the Father (Acts 1:6-7), but that they would actually shortly be joining Him in His return to Heaven for coronation and glorification (nice as paradise was there, it cannot compare to standing in the glorious presence of the living God in Heaven)!
Therefore, when the moment came that He departed Hades to permanently re-enter His body instantaneously made alive and transformed from mortal to immortal, God permitted some of them whose bodies were buried around Jerusalem to be temporarily raised after Him in celebratory anticipation of the future! They arose from graves which had already been opened by the powerful earthquake that occurred at His death and entered into the city showing themselves to many (Matthew 27:51-53). After forty days on earth spent appearing to and instructing His disciples (John 20:11-18), the Lord Jesus purposely took them to the place of His ascension so they would see His departure to Heaven (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9).
God permitted that they should also see two angels as they watched Him ascend (Acts 1:10-11). What they did not see in the spiritual realm was the joyful train of accompanying angels along with the disembodied spirits of the saints liberated from Hades and brought to God parading in triumphal procession to Heaven behind Christ as Savior, Victor and Conqueror-King fulfilling types and prophecy (Genesis 14:8-16; Psalm 68:17-20; Ephesians 4:7-10; Hebrews 2:10-18; Revelation 1:18); foreshadowing that yet to be fulfilled at His return to earth (Psalm 68:21-35)! It is customary for human kings returning home from faraway wars of conquest to be given gifts by their subjects and even resentful rebels as Psalm 68:18 notes.
However, being the Anointed One of God and as such, far superior in character to sinful, mortal men, the Lord Jesus actually gives gifts to mankind beginning with the Person of the Holy Spirit as foretold and which began to take place on Pentecost, ten days after His ascension and glorification (John 7:37-39, 14:16-17, 15:26-27, 16:5-15, 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-21, 38-39). He also gives His human followers gifted, led, controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve His purposes for the good of His own and all mankind (Ephesians 4:11-16)! I am deeply honored in the Lord to serve you as a watchman/prophet and teacher in the main and doing the work of an evangelist (Ezekiel 33:1-9; Romans 12:3-8; 2 Timothy 4:5) after His faithful servants since the 1st century as His victory gift giving campaign among men continues to the end--glory to His Name!
Thanks now, to the permanent, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and ascension into Heaven with all of the disembodied Old Testament saints, those who have believed on Him in this New Testament period follow behind (John 13:36-14:6). As the apostle Paul discusses in 2 Corinthians 5:1-8, if our earthly tent--(our present, mortal body) is destroyed (dies), we are comforted by the fact God has a building from Heaven (our resurrected, immortal body) to house us with.
We actually yearn deep in our souls to be in that body right now! However, we must wait for the appointed day assured by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit as God’s guarantee that it will come so that we even welcome temporary disembodiment confident that our spirits will ascend to be with Christ in Heaven. We are confident because as the apostle Paul also teaches, “we walk by faith, not by sight,” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NKJV).
Angels are “ministering spirits” according to Scripture whose natural form as created by God is solely spirit (Psalm 104:4; Hebrews 1:7, 14, NKJV). But man was created by God to be housed in a body whether of composition from the dust of the earth as the first Adam or of eternal spirit as the Second Adam, Jesus Christ from Heaven who was made mortal to suffer death in saving fallen mankind and resurrected to immortal glory (Genesis 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:44b-50)! Therefore, it is unnatural for man to be disembodied, yet, God has permitted it as the temporary experience and consequence of sin (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:17-19; Romans 5:12; Hebrews 2:9, 9:27-28).
Nevertheless, even the unnatural condition of being disembodied God has made wonderful for those from creation that have looked to Him in faith. In this edited 2013 repost, marvel you saints at the awesome works of our God who has made comforting provision for us in between the death of the body and our soon coming resurrection to immortal glory all brought to light by the death, burial, resurrection, ascension and glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 1:8-10)!
Originally Posted April 14, 2013
According to Luke’s Gospel account, just before His death on the cross, the Lord Jesus told the repentant thief crucified with Him, ‘“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise,’” (Luke 23:43, NKJV). After awhile, the Son spoke directly and finally to His Father saying, ‘“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,’” then “breathed His last” (Luke 23:46, NKJV). Clearly, even a casual consideration of these two statements of Jesus on the cross indicates He was fully expecting to be alive on the same day He was to die on the cross. How can this be?
The resolution is that while Christ’s body did die on that cross, His eternally joined spirit and soul remained alive as do all human spirits and souls when the body dies! The human spirit and soul are a package deal though functionally different as seen at the creation of man and strongly implied in Scripture thereafter (Isaiah 42:5, 57:15-16; Mark 12:29-30, 14:34-38). Indeed, as the living Word of God, Christ absolutely knows the place of their division (Hebrews 4:12) and knew exactly what He was entrusting to the protection of His Father at the death of His body. As the Lord taught, ‘“God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,’” (Matthew 22:31-32; Mark 12:26-27; Luke 20:37-38, NKJV).
Be clear at this point that though all human spirits (understood to include the soul in tandem and vice versa going forward) live in terms of existence after the body dies, only born again Christians enjoy the qualitatively superior “eternal life” of God through relationship with Him stemming from salvation by faith in Jesus Christ (John 1:12-13, 3:1-8, 14-15, 10:10, 11:25, 17:1-3, NKJV)! Otherwise, the wicked having died separated from God spiritually (Isaiah 59:1-2), remain in that condition and await a bodily resurrection to endure what is described as a “second death” in the lake of fire forever (Revelation 20:6, 11-15, NKJV). Consequently, let the saints heed the Lord (Matthew 10:27-31)!
The spirit of man separates from the body at death which renders it disembodied. So, where does it go? As noted in my blog, God Raises The Dead! under the category The Faith, the Lord Jesus Christ expressed a confidence toward God the Father through His forefather, king David, a thousand years in advance that He would not leave His soul in Sheol (the Old Testament term for the abode of the dead or disembodied called Hades in the New Testament) or let His body decay and would instead raise Him from the dead (Psalm 16:9b-11a; Acts 2:27-28a).
Always in absolute control of His creation, the holy God established that disembodied human spirits from fallen Adam should abide away from Him because of sin guilt and defilement until future divine disposition in a location that is in the bowels of the earth as understood by the often associated term “down” with the place of the disembodied (Numbers 16:28-34; 17:13-16; Matthew 11:23, NKJV). Truly, when the prophet Samuel was permitted of God to appear to king Saul he came “up” from the earth (1 Samuel 28:7-14, NKJV). Apparently, the teaching of the Rabbis in 1st century Israel that this place under the earth holding departed human spirits is divided according to divine will was correct.
The Lord did not challenge this thinking in His parable of the rich man and Lazarus found in Luke 16:19-31. In order to be meaningful for its hearers, a parable must have things in it that are familiar and relatable to them. In the parable warning of the consequence of being caught up in the riches of this life and ignoring the teaching of God’s Word containing His priorities, the Lord shows Hades divided at least in half--other portions of Scripture reveal a special place of lockdown for chained fallen angels as well (ex. 2 Peter 2:4). “Abraham’s bosom” figuratively representing a paradise of comfort and rest is where the beggar, Lazarus, ended up upon death while the rich man was tormented in flames. He saw “Abraham afar off” and learned they were separated by a “great gulf fixed” that neither could cross (Luke 16:22-26, NKJV).
That God would create a divide where condemned sinners suffer and His people are comforted and protected is plainly seen in the way He made such a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites during the plagues He brought on the land of Egypt in the Exodus (Exodus 8:20-23). In Samuel’s disembodied appearance to Saul, he seemed to be annoyed that he had been disturbed--not the attitude you would expect if his spirit and soul were in torment (1 Samuel 28:15-19). Truly, Saul and his sons would join Samuel like the rich man with Abraham in the same place of the disembodied, but each in separate accommodations according to God’s judgment! Thus, with joyful anticipation of a restful paradise for saved by faith disembodied spirits under the earth, our Lord comforts the thief on the cross.
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