three days in the belly
 

I am looking for your thoughts and scrptures on what took place the three days Jesus was dead?

Re: three days in the belly
 

Jesus slept for three days in the heart of the Earth. I mean the sleep of death. His death paid for our sins. That he rose again is the good news otherwise known as "the gospel"

Re: three days in the belly
 

I always thought this is when He went and got the "keys"

Re: three days in the belly
 

Well I ask this question. Could he "go get the keys" before he rose from the dead?

Re: three days in the belly
 

1 Peter 3:18-22 speaks of Him preaching "unto the spirits in prison." Not to bring up the Book of Enoch again...

It does seem that He didn't spend the whole time sawing logs.

Re: three days in the belly
 

Doesn't Peter say Jesus preached to those spiritual prisoners through Noah by His Spirit in the days of Noah?

Re: three days in the belly
 

See what Sam said.

Also could Yeshua have went anywhere before he was raised from the dead?

Re: three days in the belly
 

uh... no.

Dude, you were batting 1000 all last week - you were an an amazing font of knowledge - and now ... what's happened to you? (lol)
Yes, Yeshua could have pretty much done anything He wanted at any time. But the question is, what did He do?

Re: three days in the belly
 

That is indeed what the bible says.

Re: three days in the belly
 

What did Peter preach he did on the first sermon preached at Pentecost?

22: 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, 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: 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 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. Acts 2:22-32

Jesus was in Hades where all the dead go. It is the grave same place David expected to go and did. His soul and his flesh was delivered from there by the resurrection! Look carefully at verse 31.

The resurrection of Christ is the GOOD NEWS! That although men die they can live again.

David SLEPT with his Fathers. Peter defines that clearly in verse 29. It says he was both dead and buried.

Paul taught us that Jesus was the FIRSTFRUITS OF THEM THAT SLEPT.

20: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21: For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

Of all who ever died (slept) he was the FIRST to be raised from death and gain eternal life. Paul says Jesus was sleeping until his resurrection.

As concerning the Lords death it was what he HAD TO DO to pay for our sins. After that was accomplished God could raise him up again.

The key is to understand RESURRECTION. It means "a standing up again" or to "raise".

We raise from the dead. Not from life. Notice all the preaching about the resurrection. Thats the greatest event since the creation of the world!

Re: three days in the belly
 

This article is from pages 10 and 11 of the December 2008 issue of The Pentecostal Herald which arrived in my mail on November 24, 2008.

Where Are the Dead?
by David Norris
Some years ago I took a university class that examined how philosophers sought to prove the existence of God. The course surveyed numerous philosophers, and in the end we read a book written by the professor himself. As we began to discuss his book, the professor made a heart rendering profession, a confession, no doubt influenced by the recent loss of his wife to cancer. He offered, “If I knew that there was something after this life, something that made sense of all the suffering in this world, then I am quite certain I could believe in God.” Such a statement is telling. The professor’s whole belief system was linked to his view of life after death. Arguably, every religious tradition must speak to the question of suffering and must in some sense address the question of life after death. Further, people do not merely ask, “Is there life after death?” They want specific details as to the reality that a person experiences when he dies. Significantly, not only does the Bible give considerable attention to this important question, it is not too much to say that the Bible proclaims life beyond this world as the ultimate reality.

The Old Testament provides an important foundation as to what happens to people who die. There was an understanding among the Jewish people in covenant relationship with God that they would “rest” with their fathers. (See Genesis 47:30; Deuteronomy 31:16; 2 Samuel 7:12). Further, the Old Testament does not merely speak of death only in terms of “rest.” The Hebrew word that refers to the place of the dead is “sheol.” Some times the word is translated “pit”; other times, it is translated “grave”; often it is translated as “hell.” Yet, even when rendering the word “sheol” as “hell,” the translators of the King James Version did not intend to present sheol merely as a universal place of torment. Rather, the teaching of the Old Testament is that all dead, whether good or bad, went to sheol.

Jesus taught in some detail about the abode of the dead in Luke chapter 16. He explained how that in the Old Testament afterlife, both the good and bad existed in a single place. First, Jesus described the death of a man named Lazarus, about whom He reported no moral failing. Jesus explained that Lazarus was carried by angels to a place of comfort, a place which He termed “Abraham’s bosom.” Jesus contrasted the fate of Lazarus with another man, a rich man whose miserly ways were apparently indicative of a broader lifestyle wholly given to selfish living. When the rich man died, he too was brought to this same abode of the dead, but there was a considerable gulf between where Lazarus was being comforted and where the rich man undoubtedly was suffering. Jesus made it clear that not only was the chasm between the rich man to Lazarus not negotiable, He explained as well that the chasm between the abode of the dead and the place of the living was not negotiable either. Neither the rich man nor an emissary could return to earth with a message.

There are several points that become clear by Jesus’ teaching. First, those who die have consciousness. When the Bible speaks of the “sleep” of one who has died, it has reference to his body. Certainly from a human perspective, it hardly seems possible to speak of the bodies of those who die as “sleeping.” Physical bodies decay and disintegrate into the dust of the earth. Yet, so certain is the power of God to reconstitute things that have perished that the Bible can refer to the death of our bodies as merely “sleep;”

There is a second important point that can be understood from this teaching by Jesus: what happens in this life affects life after death. For some, this idea is so distasteful that they argue that one cannot take seriously the teaching of Jesus in this instance because He was merely telling a parable. Such a critique is unfounded, however, because even when Jesus told parables, He only narrated events that had their basis in fact. He told of farmers and bridegrooms and widows who needed to be avenged. He told of things that existed He never created realities that were not, in fact, true.

It is God who appoints “unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9:27), and it is God who closes the curtain between the dead and the living. (See Ecclesiastes 9:5) Yet, some people seek to bypass God’s prerogatives by attempting to gain knowledge of the dead through alternate measures. The Bible makes clear that fortunetellers, seances, and necromancers are not to be visited. (See Leviticus 19:31; 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:11). Those who attempt to cross into the hereafter by such means are actually trafficking in the realm of evil spirits. Only one thing can be expected: deceit. Real information about the state of the dead can reliably come from only one source: the Bible.

While the Old Testament offers only glimpses of life after death, the New Testament is replete with such information. The difference between the two testaments occurs for a very important reason; while the Old Testament anticipates only the effect of Jesus’ work on Calvary, the New Testament realize its fruition. Calvary’s victory was total and complete. Not only was Jesus’ death effectual in taking away our sin; it was also effectual in loosening Satan’s power in the afterlife. Underlying the Gospel narrative is a conflict between Satan and Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11), a conflict that Jesus would win. (See John 14:30). Sadly, prior to the cross, Satan consistently tormented people to fear death. (See Hebrews 2:14-15). The triumph of the cross allowed that because of the work of Jesus, satan’s power over death was broken. (See Hebrews 2:15). When Jesus was dying, He proclaimed, “It is finished.” He was not only speaking as the One sacrificed Himself in our stead; Jesus’ proclamation was also like that of a conquering general who had defeated his foe.

The New Testament records significant events associated with the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The psalmist prophesied that before Jesus ascended into heaven, He would first descend triumphantly to sheol --hades in the New Testament-- and ascend, taking with Him a whole host of those who had been “captive” (Psalm 68:18; Ephesians 4:8-10). Thus, when the victory of the cross was accomplished, Jesus descended to the abode of the dead and boldly proclaimed (“preached”) His total victory over Satan (1 Peter 3:19). In demonstration of His conquest, He made an open show of the devil, mocking and humiliating him. (See Colossians 2;15). Jesus then claimed for Himself the keys of death and hell. (See Revelation 1:18). Finally, Jesus ascended to paradise, but He did not do so alone. Jesus took with Him those who in the Old Testament had lived in covenant relationship with God.

Twenty times in the Old Testament it refers to descending to sheol or as sheol being “down.” In the New Testament, when writers described paradise they referred to it as up. (See 2 Corinthians 12:4). Whereas the Old Testament was oblique in its pronouncements of life after death, Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would that day be with Him in paradise. (See Luke 23:43.) Indeed, the New Testament celebrates that those who die will immediately be ushered into the presence of the Lord. Paul professed, “to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).

Certainly the Bible has more to say about life after death than what we can address in this short article. And even if we would survey all the biblical passages related to life after death, there are still some things that we cannot know this side of the curtain of death. (See 1 Corinthians 1;12.) Yet, what we do know is enough. We do know that this life is merely the vestibule of eternity, the antechamber to the hereafter. We know that compared to eternity, even severe and prolonged suffering is just “light affliction ... for a moment” (2 Corinthians 4:17). And finally, we know that the Bible’s invitation to faith is actually an invitation to hope. If you are a hurting person, the church is still inviting, Jesus is still saving, and heaven is still waiting for you.

Re: three days in the belly
 

1 Peter 3:18-22

Read it out loud to me. Help me to understand this strange and foreign tongue you speak.

Re: three days in the belly
 

By his resurrection he had the keys. Taking up his flesh again after it was dead was proof of that. I believe these keys were figurative not literal, therefore no need for the body to go anywhere. He could sleep his death sleep till it was time to pick the flesh back up.
jmho

Re: three days in the belly
 

Very good.

If this is NOT a parable we have some problems. As the writer states the place where the dead went to was Sheol. In the New Testament the same place is called Hades.

The writers of the Old Testament described it not as a place of life.

4: Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake.
5: For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave (Sheol) who shall give thee thanks? Psalms 6:4-5

Its a place where one neither remembers YHWH or gives him thanks.

10: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave,(Sheol) whither thou goest. Ecc. 9:10

It is a place where there is no knowledge. Why?

4: His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Psalms 146:4

His thoughts perish. He is no longer aware.

Job asked:

14: If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Job 14:14

Job knew he would die. He also believed he would live again. He mentions the time his "change would come". He understood he would WAIT until that happened.

How did he describe that wait?

13: If I wait, the grave (Sheol) is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
14: I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou are my mother, and my sister.
15: And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
16: They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust. Job 17:13-16

He said he would wait in Sheol. He describes this as making a bed in the darkness. In other words he would be sleeping! Note that none of these verses say that only the body dies but rather that WE die. That of us that makes us personal.

He describes the pit as a place where we rest together IN THE DUST. This means the grave.



Does not this sound much different than what we see in Abrahams bosom?

Why the difference in what the Old Testament scriptures and what Jesus is telling the Pharisees?

Why would Jesus be teaching about Abrahams bosom being a place where the dead are alive when the inspired writers before him taught otherwise?

This is the basis upon which I believe it is a parable.

Re: three days in the belly
 

This is true. So if he rose on the third day he was sleeping (dead) until then right? So my understanding is that he did nothing until he resurrected from the dead.

Re: three days in the belly
 

While its true the idea of Abrahams Bosom existed in the time of Christ the idea did not come from scripture. Search the Old Testament. You wont find it. Even as Yeshua walked the Earth he made no reference to it apart from in Luke 16.

If it were true that men went at death to Paradise in Abrahams Bosom why would Yeshua have called them back to a life on Earth? When his friend Lazarua died everyone was crying and weeping. There was no word at all by the Master that in truth he was better off because he was already partaking of eternal life. His sister said she KNEW he would live again AT THE LAST DAY.

21: Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
22: But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
23: Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
24: Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
25: Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: John 11:21-25

Notice here there was NOTHING said about her brother being alive in Paradise. I wonder why? No doubt because they believed the Old Testament scriptures about death. Namely that at death the thoughts of men perish. That there is no knowledge in Hades/Sheol. That David and Abraham himself were dead and buried.

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man was used to target THE PHARISEES who themselves had rejected the true Biblical record about death. They were rejecting the teachings of Christ in part because they were covetous. So apparently Yeshua used their own doctrine against them!

They were to get the drift that the greedy who show no mercy will suffer for it. The righteous poor would be comforted. That is the thrust of the parable. In many other places the scriptures teach the judgment of men is NOT at their death but rather at the last day judgment.

25: Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
26: For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
27: And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
28: Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29: And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. John 5:25-29

Yeshua said the hour is coming in which they that are in THE GRAVES shall come forth either to LIFE OR DAMNATION!

If the story of Lazarus and the rich man was not a parable there is another problem. Lazarus is supposed to be in Paradise living the good life. The rich man is already in the flames of hell daily.

Yet the Lord taught at another time the dead were not even alive. He said they that are in graves would come to the RESURRECTION OF LIFE.

Friends if the dead are not ALIVE that means they are not able to have eternal bliss or eternal pain UNTIL they are made alive.

So Yeshua did indeed use the fable of Abrahams Bosom in his rebuke to the Pharisees. He was using the concept of "satire" against them. Using their own belief to condemn their ways.

It was a parable.

Re: three days in the belly
 

7: But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
8: Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
9: (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
10: He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) Eph. 4:7-10

Did Yeshua take multitudes out of their comforting bliss in Abrahams bosom? What would be the point if they were in it already enjoying the presence of God? Well apparently God was not even there!

Did you notice God is never said to be in it in the parable? No! It is called ABRAHAMS BOSOM! What happened to people before Abraham himself died?
Obviously he had not yet come to his bosom so where did Noah go. When he died? Where did David go?

We are told specifically what happened to David when he died.

36: For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:
37: But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption. Acts 13:36-37

Paul said he slept with his Fathers.

Now if his soul had been in Abrahams Bosom reloicing and waiting to then be taken to Heaven when Yeshua took the multitude from that place and lead captivity captive he must have missed it! How do we know?

After Christ ascended INTO HEAVEN supposedly leading multitudes with from Abrahams Bosom Peter preached David did NOT ASCEND INTO HEAVEN!

29: 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 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.
33: Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
34: For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Acts 2:29-34

So the scenario that David as well as the other dead of the OT were taken to Heaven with Christ is wrong. Peter said after the ascension to Heaven that David was dead and buried and he did NOT ascend into Heaven!

This is further proof the rich man and Lazarus was a parable.

So when Paul mentions Yeshua leading captivity captive he probably had this in mind:

15: And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
16: They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust. Job 17:15-16

The grave is seen as captivity. When Yeshua rose he conquered captivity and took away its power over men! He in a figure took "the keys of hell and death".

The most convincing proof that multitudes of people never came forth from Abrahams Bosom into Heaven with Christ is found here:

14: That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
15: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
16: Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. 1 Tim. 6:14-16

Paul knew the story of Lazarus and the rich man was a parable. He taught that ONY Jesus has immortality! No one else does. All the others are waiting for his coming to be made alive.

20: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21: For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23: But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 1 Cor. 15:20-23