QUESTION A: Do we immediately go to heaven when we die? Or do we wait till 2nd coming? I know there will be a new heaven then but does that mean we lay insensate till then? Where did Jesus go when He "descended into hell."
QUESTION B: Where did Jesus go after he was crucified? The Apostle’s Creed says he ascended to hell. But in Luke 23:43, Jesus says to the other criminal being crucified, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” I recently heard a sermon preached on Good Friday, the Pastor stated that our debt was owed to God not to Satan and that Jesus ascending to hell was a misinterpretation of Ephesians 4:9. He went on to say that Jesus, alive in the spirit, went to proclaim to the spirits in prison, 1 Peter 3:18-20. This was all news to me. Pastor Bill recently preached on this 1 Peter 3 passage, but he said verses 18-20 were confusing and he didn’t talk about them. So where did Jesus go after he was crucified, his body was in the tomb, but where was his spirit? Thank you for your time.
ANSWER: I (Bill) believe that the weight of the New Testament is strongly on the side of a final resurrection when Jesus returns with a new physical body in a new physical creation.
When it comes to the future for Jesus’ followers, the key New Testament term is not heaven but resurrection. I’m thinking of passages like 1 Corinthians 15 which emphasize the physicality of our future resurrected bodies. Even when, in vs. 44 and following Paul expounds about “natural” and “spiritual” bodies, you can see in the text that this is not a contrast between bodies that are material with those that are immaterial, but between a body that is corruptible, subject to decay and harm, and one that is not. But both the natural and spiritual bodies are physical.
When the writers of Scripture do speak of heaven they generally are not speaking about a specific place, but rather the presence of God - there’s actually very little in the Bible itself about “going to heaven.” When Jesus speaks of the “Kingdom of Heaven” he's speaking to people - often challenging them - to be living in this kingdom in their present, not at some point in the future.
In Philippians 3:20-21. we have a statement from Paul that brings together heaven and resurrection:
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Breaking this down:
“our citizenship (our identity and loyalty) is (in the present) in heaven (with God, in His presence) ”
“And we eagerly await ( something to come in the future) a Savior from there (from the very presence of God) the Lord Jesus Christ”
“.... will (in the future) transform (radically change) our lowly (perishable) bodies so that they will be (future) like his glorious body” (Jesus’ resurrected body that death could not conquer).
Those who want to promote the notion of going to be in heaven, which again I suggest means into the very presence of God immediately after death, often cite Jesus words to the thief dying next to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). I believe there may be something to the suggestion of New Testament scholars that paradise here refers not to one’s final destination, but as in other Jewish writings to a blissful garden, a place of tranquility where the dead are refreshed as they await the dawn of the day when Christ returns. Note though that this implies something more than, as the original question suggests, “we lay insensate til then?” N.T. Wright puts it like this:
“... all the Christians departed are in substantially the same state, that of restful happiness. Though this is sometimes described as sleep, we should not take this to mean that it is a state of unconsciousness. Had Paul thought that, I very much doubt that he would have described life immediately after death as ‘being with Christ, which is far better.’” (Phil. 1:21) - N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, p. 171
As for “where did Jesus go when He ‘descended into hell.’?” My usual response to this question is to cough and try to change the subject!
Those who seek to support this statement in the Apostles’ Creed with Scripture cite Ephesians 4:8-10 which refers to Jesus’ having “ascended on high” and who also “descended into the lower, earthly regions.” And 1 Peter 3:19-20, a passage that New Testamentscholars find obscure as it speaks of Jesus, going to preach to the souls of those who died in the flood in Noah’s day.
I am not at all convinced that these passages refer to Jesus literally descending into hell. Furthermore, if we understand hell to indicate eternal separation from God, how would this apply to Jesus who then “on the third day he was raised again from the dead, he ascended into heaven ….”?
Therefore I take the statement metaphorically to indicate that Jesus, as he bore the sins of the world on the Cross, experienced temporarily, what complete separation from God was like. And that this is of incredible comfort to us when we experience extreme trials and difficulties that make us wonder if God understands. This position is expressed well in this statement form the Heidelberg Catechism, one of our core confessional documents:
Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 44
Q. Why does the creed add,
“He descended to hell”?
A. To assure me during attacks of deepest dread and temptation
that Christ my Lord,
by suffering unspeakable anguish, pain, and terror of soul,
on the cross but also earlier,
has delivered me from hellish anguish and torment.1
1 Isa. 53; Matt. 26:36-46; 27:45-46; Luke 22:44; Heb. 5:7-10