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When Jesus died, He went to hell for 3 days before gloriously rising to life again. I would love to know what happened in those three days. What was the tone and nature of interactions between Him and Satan? Did Satan still believe he’d won the battle at that point? After submitting Himself to death on the cross, did Jesus then play along with Satan for those 3 days, enduring his taunts and the worst cruelty and evil Satan could throw at Him before finally mightily revealing His triumph on the 3rd day? When He said, “It is done,” the whole spiritual realm underwent an instantaneous seismic power shift. Was the reality of that manifested immediately in hell? Or did that only happen after 3 days? Did He spend that Sabbath resting? What does Jesus resting in hell look like?! And the fact that Jesus was there is now part of hell’s history. How did the events of those days affect the reality of hell now?
God often lays foundations in history ‘before’ acting so that (? or at least with the effect that) we can understand what’s going on. He often chooses to give us clues, leaving traces of Himself throughout human history, rather than acting randomly and unannounced. What previous 'clues' or precursors tied into the event of Jesus’ resurrection (separate to His death)? I know there are some Old Testament stories where a length of 3 days is significant, like Jonah in the whale.
And at 3 days what was the spiritual event that set the resurrection process into action? God created the world through speaking. Words have spiritual power, and before an event happens in the Bible, you can often look back and see that God spoke it before it happened (whether through a person, as Jesus, as a voice from Heaven...). Of course, the event ultimately originated in God. He alone set the time (reflected in the bridegroom’s father in Jewish culture being the one to set the time for the groom to go get his bride and start the wedding), but having set it, what did He do to mark that it was time? Did God the Father speak? There were prophecies that Jesus would rise after 3 days, and He Himself had spoken of raising ‘the temple’ in 3 days, and told His disciples clearly that He would die and rise again in 3 days. Maybe those words were the spiritual event, that only saw their physical outworking after His death?
At the moment of Jesus’ death, one of the gospels notes that many dead people who had lived godly lives were raised back to life. Jesus’ death must have been like spiritual dynamite, sending such powerful shock waves throughout Heaven and hell that it actually ejected people out of Heaven and landed them back in their bodies. I have so many questions about those 2 verses in Matthew! Heaven is full of holy people – why were those particular people raised? Elsewhere in the Bible, people don’t seem to get raised after about 5 days – how long had these been dead? And how is geography relevant – the bodies of the people who were raised were buried close to Jerusalem, so being physically close to Jesus as He died seems to have been important, but why?
Lots of good questions here! Looked at the earthquake which opened the tombs recently. It was very localised - not affecting the site of the crucifixion or the tomb. A commentary writer - Coffman, personally experienced a similar earthquake in a field in Texas. It was quite near the surface and threw up tons of rocks. The dead could not have actually been resurrected until just after Jesus Himself rose, as He is the firstfruits. I believe it was a powerful accompanying sign of the deliverance wrought by the crucifixion, hence only those close by were raised. I think it is Josephus who also attests this miracle.
ReplyDeleteAs to what happened between Jesus' death and resurrection, He cannot have endured any taunting etc. since He said 'It is finished' before yielding up His spirit. He won the victory on the cross, not later in the tomb. I believe it was a true 3 days and 3 nights, which means He was crucified on Thursday, not Friday.