"Not a single member of the body of Christ has ever gone, or will ever have to go to hades.”
ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth |the location of slieol- hades\? The answer is very evident when you remember that the blood of Christ was to atone for their sins. When Jesus cried, therefore, “ It is finished,” and dismissed His spirit, he went immediately to these saints in sheol to bring the glad, good news that redemption was now complete. Sin had been atoned for, and now they could be released from sheol and go to heaven in the presence of God. This is the incident to which Peter refers in I Peter 3:18-20. “ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quick ened by the Spirit. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were dis obedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (I Peter 3:18-20). Here we are told that Christ did go and preach un to the spirits which were in prison. This was in sheol- hades, and Paul refers to the identical event when he says in Eph. 4 :8 : “ Wherefore he saith, When he as cended up on high, he led captivity, captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also decended first into the lower parts of the earth ? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things)” Eph. 4:8-10. hen Jesus met Mary on the morning of His resur rection, He forbade her to touch His body, because, He said, “ I have not yet ascended unto my Father.” The reference evidently is to His ascension into heaven with the souls of these saints who had been delivered from sheol-hades. In the evening of that same resurrection day, He, however, invited the disciples in the upper room to handle Him, to touch Him, to see that He was not a spirit, suggesting that sometime, therefore, dur ing that day between His appearance to Mary and His appearance to His disciples, Jesus had ascended into heaven and led the souls of these captives in hades out of the place of their temporary abode into the permanent presence of God, for the work of redemption was now completed. So, after Jesus’ resurrection, the saved division of
sheol-hades was completely emptied. Remember, the lost are still there. No change occurred in the lost divi sion o f hades at the death and resurrection of Christ. The lost will remain there until the judgment of the Great White Throne at the end of the ages, but the saints are now already all in heaven. Today, since the resurrection, the believer does not go into hades at all upon death, but directly into the presence of God. In II Corinthians, chapter 12, Paul tells us that he had been caught up into Paradise. Now remember that when Jesus was hanging on the Cross, Paradise was still down in hades, when He said to the thief, “ This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,” but when Paul wrote II Corinthians, it was “ up to the third heaven.” Sometime, therefore, between the resurrection of Christ and II Corinthians 12, Paradise, the “ saved” division of hades of the Old Testament had been moved. Jesus went at His death to Paradise to bring the glad news of full redemption. Today when sinners die, they still go to hades. Finally they will arise at the judgment of the Great White Throne in Revelation 20, and will be cast into hell, also called the lake of fire. We sum up the Bible teaching on this subject. Up until the resurrection, all who died went into hades, the lost in conscious suffering and torment, the saved in conscious bliss and comfort. When Jesus died, He went down into sheol and delivered the saved at His resurrection, and took them to heaven where they await the first resurrection. Not a single member of the body of Christ, of the Church of the New Testa ment, has ever gone, or will have to go to hades. And this is undoubtedly to what Jesus refers when He said: “The gates of hades [not hell] shall not prevail against it.” To which class do you belong? If you are still un saved, when you die your body will be buried, and your soul will go to this place of doom, and then, at the last resurrection, your unredeemed body will be raised and joined to your unredeemed soul and together cast into the lake of fire. But if you are saved, then when you die your body falls asleep, your soul is escorted into heaven by the angels into the presence of God, and when the Lord Jesus comes again your body will awake and reunite with your soul, and you will spend eternity in His presence, where sin and suffering and sorrow shall be no more. You can settle the matter by turning now in faith to Him Who died for you, and accepting His challenge and His offer, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
24
THE KING 'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook Online document