WHEN DID CHRIST GO INTO HELL?

[Eddie Ramos]

To be more specific, my question for this thread is at what point between Christ's death on the cross on Friday afternoon in 33 A.D., and his resurrection Sunday morning, did his soul go into hell (the grave)? Doesn't the Bible tell us that his soul went with the thief to paradise that very day?

Luke 23:42–43 (KJV 1900)
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. 43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

But we know that his soul was indeed in hell (the grave) because of this passage:

Psalm 16:10 (KJV 1900)
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;
Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

And rather than responding with what scholars think or what the general consensus is, please open and use the scriptures to provide the answers, as the scriptures are the authority of the children of God. My goal here is to show that there is no way to harmonize these two scriptures with the Bible if we believe that Christ died only once, at the cross in 33 A.D. But if we can see that he died twice (once before the world began and then again at the cross in 33 A.D.) then we have perfect harmony with the scriptures.

[Eloi]

(...) the Christian who wrote the explanation I linked (...)

Nothing you quoted showed Jesus' resurrection body was physical ... what that does demonstrate is that resurrected Jesus MADE HIMSELF VISIBLE in physical bodies ... both statements are diferent.

Acts 10:39 (...) they did away with him by hanging him on a stake. 40 God raised this one up on the third day and allowed him to become manifest, 41 not to all the people, but to witnesses appointed beforehand by God, to us, who ate and drank with him after his rising from the dead.

The angels of old also did the same things... and they don't have physical bodies naturally. When they returned to heaven, they returned in their invisible bodies.

Judg. 13:15 Manoah now said to Jehovah’s angel:
“Please stay, and let us prepare a young goat for you.”
16 But Jehovah’s angel said to Manoah:
“If I stay, I will not eat your food; but if you wish to present a burnt offering to Jehovah, you may offer it up.”
Manoah did not know that he was Jehovah’s angel. 17 Then Manoah said to Jehovah’s angel:
“What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”
18 However, Jehovah’s angel said to him:
“Why are you asking about my name, seeing that it is a wonderful one?”
19 Then Manoah took the young goat and the grain offering and offered them on the rock to Jehovah.
And He was doing something amazing while Manoah and his wife were looking on. 20 As the flame ascended from the altar heavenward, Jehovah’s angel ascended in the flame from the altar while Manoah and his wife were looking on.
At once they fell with their faces to the ground. 21 Jehovah’s angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife.
Then Manoah realized that he was Jehovah’s angel. 22 Manoah then said to his wife:
“We are sure to die, because it is God whom we have seen.”
23 But his wife said to him:
“If Jehovah wanted to put us to death, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hand, he would not have shown us all these things, and he would not have told us any of these things.”

[Eloi]

A pagan does not believe in any resurrection

No one said they did. You are simply confused here.

You said they knew what resurrection means ... so, you are saying they believed that "getting back a body" was the meaning of what others consider to be the resurrection. You are talking about unreal and irrelevant things: pagans don't think in resurrection, and whatever you think they believed about what that means is just speculation, since as I just told you, when people think in spirit bodies, they do not think in the necessity of any physical body.

[historia]

A pagan does not believe in any resurrection

No one said they did. You are simply confused here.

You said they knew what resurrection means ... so, you are saying they believed that "getting back a body" was the meaning of what others consider to be the resurrection.

Yes, that is correct. That's different from saying they "believed in" resurrection. You keep conflating those two things.

pagans don't think in resurrection, and whatever you think they believed about what that means is just speculation

On the contrary, my comments about what they believed are based on my knowledge of various ancient sources and the relevant modern scholarship, not "speculation."

Ancient pagans were familiar with the concept of resurrection.

For example, the myths about Asclepius, the god of medicine, included his ability to bring the dead back to life:

In addition to the techniques of medicine, [Asclepius] also had magical techniques at his disposal, including the use of drugs, incantations and love potions, and the use of Gorgon's blood as an elixir (a gift given to him by Athena). This latter technique turned out to be the most significant to the god of medicine, as it actually gave him the power to resurrect the dead.

Philodemus in On Piety 131 says that Asclepius raised (anestesen) Hippolytus from the dead.

Hercules was also said to have raised (anastenai) people from the dead. Agatharchides, De mari Erythraeo 7, says:

And Alcestis, Protesilaus and Glaucus who died rose again, the one being brought up by Heracles, the other because of his love for his wife, and the last because of the prophecy about the one buried with him.

Another example is Palaephetus, De incredibilibus 26, on whether it is possible to raise (anastisai) someone from the dead:

And this tale is utterly ridiculous, that when Glaucus had died in a jar of honey, Minos buried Polyidus son of Koiranos (who was from Argos) in the tomb, who seeing a serpent place an herb on another dead serpent and raise it, also did this to Glaucus and raised him. This very thing is impossible: to raise a dead man or serpent or any other animal.

In all of these examples what the authors are describing is the person's material body being raised -- that's what resurrection entailed.

These authors also considered them one-off occurrences. Ancient pagans didn't believe in a general resurrection of the dead, as some Jews did.

[Eloi]

Yeah, you are right, they didn't believe that others believe that resurrection was getting a body of flesh back ... it is you who believe that they did so.

The examples you mentioned show that they were trying to get LIFE BACK in a body, NOT a body back.

[historia]

The Bible says he was bodily resurrected.

Where does it say that?

This is entailed in the word resurrection itself. ...

How so?

So, words have meanings according to how people use them.

If we look at ancient Greco-Roman sources (see above) and Second Temple Jewish sources, we see that, when talking about the dead coming back to life, when authors referred to "resurrection" -- in Greek anastasis and related terms -- they invariably were describing someone coming back to bodily life.

If an ancient person thought that someone became a spirit after they died, they would almost certainly not have called that "resurrection."

[historia]

The examples you mentioned show that they were trying to get LIFE BACK in a body, NOT a body back.

I don't see how that's relevant to my argument.

The examples I cited above support the point I was making: When ancient pagans talked about the dead coming back to life, the word "resurrection" -- in Greek anastasis and related terms -- always referred to a return to bodily life.

If an ancient person thought someone became a spirit after they died, they would almost certainly not have called that "resurrection."

[Eloi]

The examples you mentioned show that they were trying to get LIFE BACK in a body, NOT a body back.

I don't see how that's relevant to my argument.

The examples I cited above support the point I was making: When ancient pagans talked about the dead coming back to life, the word "resurrection" -- in Greek anastasis and related terms -- always referred to a return to bodily life.

If an ancient person thought someone became a spirit after they died, they would almost certainly not have called that "resurrection."

I guess you lost your way ... so, go back and check your statements and why I am trying to show you that what you said before is wrong.

There is not any GETTING A BODY BACK involved in the idea of resurrection, but GETTING THE LIFE BACK.

[Eloi]

As I said before, it is evident that to get someone's life back that person needs a body, but the focus in the resurrection is in the life, not in the body.

If God wants to turn people who died as human beings into spirits, he would not have to give them bodies like the one they had before they died, but bodies like the ones angels have. He still brings them back to life, but not with flesh bodies. So, there you have: the resurrection of them is about giving them the life back in diferent and totally new of its kind bodies.

[Eddie Ramos]

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For what it's worth, most of the commentaries I looked at identify the speaker in Psalm 16:10 as David, not Jesus.

.

Thanks for your reply. Bible commentaries are only any good if they point you back tot he scriptures rather than giving you their "educated guess". In this case, most of those commentaries that you mentioned would be incorrect because they're not taking the whole Bible into account. The Psalms (like the whole Bible) is a spiritual book written in parables. This means that while we may be reading one thing on the surface (like Psalm 16:10), it may easily be deduced that David is the one saying this about himself. But, as we study the Bible, we learn that while much of the Psalms is written in the first person, that it's actually speaking of Christ. Here's how we can be sure that Psalm 16:10 is doing just that:

Acts 2:22–32 (KJV 1900)
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: 24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. 25 For David speaketh concerning him (meaning, concerning Christ), (so, while these next words which are taken from the Psalms, were spoken by David in the first person, they're actually a reference to Christ because that's who David was a type and figure of) I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: 26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: 27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. 29(Now Peter is going to explain what these words, spoken by David, spiritually meant) Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. 30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; 31 He (David) seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. 32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

In other words, since David has been dead for hundreds of years since Peter spoke those words in Acts 2, David's flesh has indeed seen corruption. So, David was not speaking of himself in Psalm 16:10, but of Christ. While Christ was in the tomb, his flesh did not see corruption. And he demonstrated this when he rose with the exact same body of flesh.

[Eddie Ramos]

DID JESUS DIE TWO TIMES?

1 PETER 3:18

For Christ died once for all time for sins, a righteous person for unrighteous ones, in order to lead you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit

1 Peter 3:18 (KJV 1900)
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 quickened by the Spirit:

There is no question that Christ died once for sins, but the question is, how many times did Christ die? And the Bible teaches that it was twice. Once, to pay for sins from the foundation of the world and a second time (in 33 A.D.) to demonstrate what he had already accomplished before the world began. The second time, then, was not when payment for sins was made, but when he made manifest what he had already done.

1 Peter 1:18–20 (KJV 1900)
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,