After Jesus died,
He rose again three days later. Where did He spend the time between
His death and His resurrection? When we read Acts 2:27
from the King James Version, it seems very clear
where He went. That verse includes a prophecy about
Jesus's resurrection that says, "Because thou wilt not
leave my soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine
Holy One to see corruption." Clearly, this verse says
Jesus's soul was in Hell. And when we couple this verse
with 1 Peter 3:18-20, which says, "Christ...went and preached
to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of
God waited in the days of Noah..." It seems to present a picture
that Christ descended to Hell and preached to the spirits of those
who were lost during the flood. A closer look at these verses, however,
reveals some interesting information. Looking at the original
language of Acts 2:27, we find that the word that King
James Version translates, "Hell," is actually the word, "Hades." Throughout the Bible,
the word, "Hades" simply means, "the place of the dead," where both righteous and unrighteous
souls go to wait for the Judgment. In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells a story in
which two men die. They both go to Hades,
the realm of the dead. The righteous Lazarus, however,
goes to Abraham's bosom in Hades, and the wicked rich man
goes to Torment in Hades. It's important to understand that
the final destination of the wicked, which in Greek is
the word, "Gahenna" and is the lake of fire
that burns forever, isn't mentioned
in Acts 2:27. In fact, we know that
Jesus didn't go there, and here's why. While He was
on the cross, He talked with the thief that
was crucified next to Him. This thief exhibited a saving
faith in the person of Christ, "And Jesus said to him, 'Assuredly, I say to you,
today you will be with Me in Paradise.'" Now, in light of
Jesus's statement, we know that He and the
thief were going to Hades, the realm of the dead, but they weren't going
to the section of Hades, that is Torment, where the wicked
rich man went. They were going
to Paradise, which corresponds to
Abraham's bosom in Luke 16. All souls go to Hades, only the wicked end
up in Hell or Gehenna. In fact, in the book of Revelation,
at the final Judgment, Death and Hades deliver up
the dead who are in them, and all are judged, those who are righteous
and those who are wicked. But what about Jesus preaching
to the souls in prison? How did He do that if
He never went to Hell? When we look closer at
the passage in 1 Peter 3, we discover more
interesting information. The text says, "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, by whom also He went and
preached to the spirits in prison..." "who formerly
were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared,
in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved
through water." Notice that the text says the spirits
were in prison at the time Peter wrote; it does not say that Jesus went
and preached to them in prison. So, we can see
that at some point, Christ preached to those
wicked spirits who are now, "in prison," at the
writing of 1 Peter. But when could He have done that if not
during those three days before He rose? When we study the book of 1 Peter,
we see just what the writer meant. In 1 Peter 1:10-11,
the text says that the ancient prophets
who wrote Scripture, "searched diligently... searching what,
or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them
was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ
and the glories that would follow." So, Christ's spirit was
preaching through the prophets. When we turn to 2 Peter 2:5,
we read that Noah was, "a preacher of righteousness." Thus, when we put
these pieces together, we see Christ's spirit preaching through
Noah to the people of his generation, whose wicked spirits are in prison at
the time of the writing of 1 Peter. When Jesus died, He immediately went to Paradise
to be with the thief on the cross. The Bible doesn't say that He went to
Hell to preach to the wicked spirits there. The practical lesson
for us to learn is that, "...it's appointed for men to die once,
and after this the Judgment..." Our eternal destination will be sealed
the instant our physical life is over. Since there won't be
any second chances, let's determine to love and obey
God while we are on this earth, so we can live with
Him for all eternity.
