1. Prior to Christ’s ascension, all who died descended to Sheol/Hades, which was divided into two parts, one for the wicked and one for the righteous.
2. At Christ’s ascension, he went into heaven and took with him all of the saints in the paradisal part of Sheol/Hades, while the wicked remain in Sheol/Hades, waiting for judgment.
3. Upon death new covenant believers go to be with Christ in heaven ahead of the general resurrection, while the wicked descend to Sheol/Hades waiting for judgment.
4. Eventually Sheol/Hades will be thrown into hell and all believers will share in the new heavens and new earth.
See Evangelical Theology p. 323.
I’ve featured some debates with Michael Bird before, he is a famous evangelical historian.
It’s important to understand that the Christian view of humans is that we have a material part and a non-material part. When you die, the material part goes into a tomb. The non-material part goes on to be with God, until the day when you get a new resurrection body.
Here’s an article from Bible.org, written by famous New Testament manuscript expert Dan Wallace. (H/T Eric Chabot, Ratio Christi OSU)
There is a lot in this article, but I’ll just snip out one that I think is interesting.
First, what does the Old Testament say about the doctrine of the resurrection in Judaism?
The resurrection of the dead was not plainly revealed in the OT until very late in salvation history. It was not until the Jews were taken in captivity, in the sixth century BC, that this was clearly articulated. Daniel 12:1-2 is the principal text: it speaks of the resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous:
At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (RSV)
Why was it not clearly revealed till then? It was not revealed until there was a felt need for it. When the Jews had no present (because of the captivity) they had to look to the future. The revelation of the resurrection came at precisely the time when the people of God needed hope for the future.
What is significant about this is how masterful are God’s insights into human nature. In the NT era, one religious group in Palestine did not embrace the resurrection as a true doctrine: the Sadducees (cf. Mark 12:18)–that is why they were “sad, you see!” The Sadducees were in charge of the temple. They derived their income from the sacrifices. In a sense, they were the precursors to modern TV evangelists. They had it good! They were the rich aristocracy that ran the place.
Those who have it good in this life don’t often long for the next. The Sadducees illustrate this. The resurrection is a truth especially precious to those who are poor and those who are hopeless. It is precious to those who long for heaven enough that earth holds no sway over them.
Many things that I wanted to achieve in this life never happened. I wanted to do great things for God, not the least of which was getting married, having a family, getting a PhD and teaching computer science in a secular university. It seems like everything takes so long to do, and secular leftists in government keep making everything I wanted to try to do more expensive and more risky. I’ll never have enough time to do everything!
I often find myself thinking of Heaven, and having that eternal perspective on this life. On Sunday, I was on the treadmill listening to 1st Corinthians, and Paul was talking about how difficult the Christian life is supposed to be because of negative reaction from the people around you. I’m glad my salvation doesn’t depend on what people think of me, or whether I was able to get enough done for God.
Significance for apologetics
Did you know that Jesus provided the resurrection as evidence for those who were skeptical of his claims to be God stepping into history?
Here’s an article from Got Questions? on the “Sign of Jonah”, which appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
It says:
The phrase “sign of Jonah” was used by Jesus as a typological metaphor for His future crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Jesus answered with this expression when asked by the Pharisees for miraculous proof the He was indeed the Messiah. The Pharisees remained unconvinced of Jesus’ claims about Himself, despite His having just cured a demon-possessed man who was both blind and mute. Shortly after the Pharisees accused Jesus of driving out demons by the power of Satan, they said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:38–41).
To fully appreciate the answer that Jesus gave, we must go to the Old Testament book of Jonah. In its first chapter, we read that God commanded the prophet Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and warn its people that He was going to destroy it for its wickedness. Jonah disobediently ran from the Lord and headed for the city of Tarshish by boat. The Lord then sent a severe storm that caused the crew of the ship to fear for their lives. Jonah was soon thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish where he remained for “three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:15–17). After the three-day period, the Lord caused the great fish to vomit Jonah out onto dry land (Jonah 2:10).
It is this three days that Jesus was referring to when He spoke of the sign of Jonah.
I often bring up the Sign of Jonah when I am dealing with Christians who don’t want to learn how to explain their faith to non-Christians persuasively. I’m glad that story is in there!
The resurrection is a very important part of the life of the Christian. I argued in this post that it makes a difference to your feelings about your own life, and it makes a difference to your case-making with non-Christians.
Something that Ted Cruz said in the ABC News debate last night started me thinking about Bible study and being a prophetic voice to this generation on moral issues. I guess everybody knows that I have not been influenced by the spirit of the age – moral relativism. Everybody seems to be in favor of live and let live, not judging, compassion, diversity, etc. these days. There seems to be a lot of hedonism around, too – pursuing good feelings, fun and thrills in this life. Anyway, let’s see Ted Cruz talk about a family member who made some very bad decisions on a moral issue.
My older sister, Miriam, who was my half-sister, struggled her whole life with drug and alcohol addiction. My father and her mom divorced when she was a little girl and she was angry her whole life, and she ended up marrying a man who had been in and out of jail. She then became a single mom and she herself went to jail several times and she ended up spending some time in a crack house.
I still remember my father and me driving up to get Myriam out of that crack house to try to convince her she needed to be a mom to — to my nephew Joey.
She wasn’t willing to listen. She was not willing to change the path she was on. She was angry. I was — had just gotten my first job coming out of law school. I took a $20,000 loan on a credit card to put my nephew, Joey, in Valley Forge Military Academy — he was in sixth grade at the time, to pay his way through that.
And about five, six years ago, Miriam died of an overdose. It was — the coroner ruled it accidental. We don’t know. She went to one night, had taken too many pills, and Joey walked in and found her dead.
This is an absolute epidemic. We need leadership to solve it. Solving it has to occur at the state and local level with programs like A.A., and counseling, and churches and charities. But it also has to be securing the borders, because you have got Mexican cartels that are smuggling vast amounts of heroin into this country.
We know how to secure the borders. What is missing is the political will to do it.
And as president, I will secure the border, we will end this deluge of drugs that is flowing over our southern border and that is killing Americans across this country.
I know many of you might think that Cruz had an ideal upbringing, but those who have read his book know that his father abandoned the family, and only returned after becoming a Christian. His parents later divorced because they were both heavy drinkers. He hasn’t had a happy life, but sometimes, unhappy lives make the best Christians – because they have the experience of tragedy that allows them to plead all the more earnestly with those about to make mistakes. I wrote before about how Christians who come from a rough upbringing and make bad decisions can turn into the most effective Christians, speaking from their experiences. The point is that we should not be annoyed with Christians who have a moral compass – the moral compass is there to save us from harm, not to make us feel bad for no reason.
OK, let’s see what the Bible says about warnings and judging.
I have two wise Christian friends, both named Neil S., who both live in North Carolina.
10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.
11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.
12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.
15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants.
16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.
17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.
18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.
20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
And my other wise friend Neil S. sent me this listing of some the things that went wrong after Israel got King Solomon. Saul and David got Israel into a lot of trouble too. I think this story is one of the reasons why the Founders of the United States put in place a Constitution that is supposed to limit the power of the President, the federal government and the Supreme Court. Checks and balances. Today many Americans are clamoring for a King to rip up the Constitution.
Anyway, the point is that Christians need to understand that when the Bible tells us that something is morally wrong, that it is not “our belief” that has no applicability to others. We should always speak up from our experiences and from the publicly available evidence to warn people who are about to make mistakes or who are making mistakes. It’s a loving thing to do, it’s a Judeo-Christian thing to do. This is our heritage as Bible believers.
WINTERY KNIGHT 