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Exploring the Afterlife: Jesus' Journey Between Death and Resurrection · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Music.
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  To flavor, to be pleased or gratified by, enjoy.
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  We are hoping that what we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life.
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  Well, good morning, Rowan. Good morning, Don. How are you doing?
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  I'm doing well. Well, I'm doing pretty good.
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  Doing pretty good. I began to realize as we were taping that we really haven't
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  said a lot about who you are, Rowan.
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  Rowan is one of my neighbors, and you go to a local Christian high school.
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  I do. And you play some sports. What sports do you play?
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  Pretty busy. Fall is the only season I get off.
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  Basketball, golf, and soccer, both in the spring, and then baseball in the summer.
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  Oh, yeah. So you took the fall off. So you didn't, okay.
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  It's my. Didn't run cross country or anything like that. Nope.
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  Okay. I didn't. That's probably good. But an avid golfer.
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  That is- Some may say. Some may say, yes, an avid golfer. And one of these days,
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  he might be brave enough to even take Don out.
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  And teach Don. He should. Yeah. That might be frustrating.
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  That's the way golf is sometimes. Oh, well, maybe I'll get the swing of it. Yeah. Okay.
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  So Rowan has questions. He has collaborated with some others and brings some questions. Yeah.
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  Yeah. They've been a little tough. Had to take a break between sessions.
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  So what kind of question you got for us now? This one, I kind of don't think
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  it'll take long to answer, but where was Jesus between his death and resurrection?
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  Like, did he go to heaven or?
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  Actually, if you look at what Peter says, he didn't go to heaven.
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  Okay. But he actually descended and preached the gospel to those who were already
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  dead. So if you go to 1 Peter 3, beginning in verse 3.
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  For Christ died, verse 18, for Christ died for sins once for all,
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  the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
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  He was put to death in the body, but made alive in the spirit,
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  through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed
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  long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
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  Okay, so what is that a reference to?
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  The... He preached to the spirits in prison, which means they were in bondage,
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  and they are specifically those
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  who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah.
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  So it's the place of the dead. So those people who did not accept,
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  who were disobedient in the Old Testament prior to the cross. I see.
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  And so it basically says he preached to the spirits in prison or in Hades, if you will.
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  Then if you go down and it says in verse chapter 4, as a result,
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  he does not live the rest of...
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  Verse 6, for this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead,
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  so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body,
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  but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
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  You have that look, Rowan. You have that look. I'm trying to think.
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  So like the people in Old Testament times that were, like you said,
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  before the cross, before the cross, is this everybody or is this?
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  I take it as everybody. Okay. And I go back to Ephesians chapter 1.
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  Four, and it quotes a passage from the Old Testament.
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  And it is verses eight. That's why it says, when he ascended on high,
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  he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.
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  What does it mean that he ascended except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions?
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  He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in
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  order to fill the whole universe. Okay.
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  So if the cross, okay, this is Don, this is Don Ease.
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  If the cross makes such a difference in whether our sins are covered or not.
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  Okay. Jesus died on the cross. His blood was shed as a sacrifice for our sins, Hebrews 10, 25.
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  If he shed his blood to cover sin, then it's only from the cross on that we're covered.
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  But what Peter is making note of is, while Jesus was in the grave,
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  his spirit went and preached to all those who had died before that.
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  So, in effect, the gospel, the cross has been preached to every soul.
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  Interesting. And had an opportunity to either respond or reject the gospel, the good news. Yeah.
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  That means we're all on the equal playing field, Old Testament,
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  New Testament, because of what Jesus did on the cross.
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  I've never thought about that. You thought it was going to be easy question, didn't you? I did.
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  Yeah. And, you know, this isn't accepted by everybody.
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  But as I look at this passage in 1 Peter and Ephesians and the Old Testament
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  Psalm that it reflects on,
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  then I realize this is a thought that was probably carried by the apostles,
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  that this cross of Jesus Christ was not limited to saving everybody after the
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  cross, but it was also a salvation meant for all of us as human beings,
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  because he even broke through the bondage of death to reach out to those who
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  had never had an opportunity to hear the cross, hear about the cross,
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  or hear about his sacrifice,
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  and he preached the good news to them.
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  They had an opportunity to respond, and when Christ comes again,
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  he will lead them just like the rest of us.
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  To heaven. So when those people in the Old Testament died then, where did they go?
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  Well, there was a concept of the Old Testament called Hades,
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  and it was basically the place of the dead.
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  It's a revisionist of the Greek concept of, okay, the realm of the dead,
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  that when you die, you go to this place, and it's sort of a holding pattern, holding spot.
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  In the New Testament, we don't have quite that same concept,
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  but the Old Testament definitely had a place of the dead.
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  We see that in 1 Samuel, I think it's 22, when Esmeralda calls for Samuel's
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  ghost for Saul to talk to, and Samuel chews him out for it and goes back.
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  But you know it's it's it's that place
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  of the dead a holding spot if you will and yeah that's a concept that i'm not
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  sure we quite hold on to anymore the place of the dead interesting but yeah
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  yeah did that raise more questions maybe.
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  I i find that this is not something that people have readily read about yeah
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  it's it's i mean it To me, it's in black and white, but that's just done. Yeah.
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  Is that kind of where the sense of, because I've heard of purgatory for some
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  religions, is that kind of like where that sense came from? Yeah.
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  Purgatory in the Catholic understanding would be like the Old Testament Hades. Okay.
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  Yeah. The difference is the selling of indulgences was to get you out of purgatory
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  and send you on towards heaven. Sit there quicker. Yeah.
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  That was a lot better question than I could be. See, your questions are good.
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  Yeah. That got a long ways. It did.
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  All right. So next one is, how does this Holy Spirit work in us?
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  This is another multi-parter. Okay.
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  Why did the disciples have to wait until Jesus' ascension to have this Holy Spirit come upon them?
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  And who has the Holy Spirit in them?
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  Oh, wow. That's a good one. So let's start with that second piece because it
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  will help us understand the first and the third.
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  So the second piece was, the Holy Spirit did not come until Jesus ascended because
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  that would be three parts of the Godhead on earth at the same time.
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  And so God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit.
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  And for some reason, I don't know exactly the methodology behind it,
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  but Jesus said, it won't come until I ascend.
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  And he said that in John 14, 15.
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  So it was important in Jesus'.
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  In Jesus, the way he talked, that he first ascend and then the Spirit come.
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  So I guess it has something to do with, I mean, he didn't explain the why. Yeah.
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  But only two-thirds of God can be out of heaven at a time. I don't know.
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  That seems to be the sense. So that's why they weren't on at the same time.
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  The other part of it is, you know, Jesus in his presence was not just like you and me sitting here.
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  I mean, you could tell from reading the Gospels that Jesus' presence changed things.
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  Because just his going on the banks when he got to the Gadarenes at Gennesaret,
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  and just his getting out of the boat, the demonic,
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  the man who had the legion of demons was affected by the presence of Jesus.
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  Yeah. And actually came towards him and said, don't bother us,
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  you know, we're, they acknowledged him as the Christ.
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  And they were invaded, if you were, or at least oppressed by the fact that Jesus
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  was there and they knew their time was short.
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  So just Jesus' presence was like having not only the Son, but the Spirit as well.
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  Yeah. So then how does the Holy Spirit manifest in like you and me? Yeah.
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  I could tell when I was baptized, I still remember the water going over my head.
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  I can even, even though the building has changed, I can tell you the exact spot
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  in that building where I was baptized.
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  Because I just felt not only the water and Edmund Miller used quite a bit of
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  water, but I could feel a warmth of just go over my body.
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  And that's the first time I'd felt that.
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  When the Holy Spirit called me to ministry, it was dynamic.
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  It was like a power in my life. When I had the opportunity to speak,
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  Like, when the Holy Spirit comes over me in preaching, it's amazing.
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  Usually my body hasn't quite got the energy to keep up with it, but it's amazing stuff.
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  Now, that being said, we go to Galatians 5, and here are some of the ways that
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  the Spirit is manifest in our lives.
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  Verse 22, Galatians 5, verse 22.
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  So the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
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  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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  Against such things there is no law. If you can...
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  When the Holy Spirit's presence, you love even those who are unlovely.
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  When the Holy Spirit is present, you will have a joy even in the times of heartache and brokenness.
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  You will have peace in the midst of a brokenness.
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  I mean, basically, Irenae is the transliteration of the word shalom from the
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  Old Testament, where God desires for us to have wholeness, the wholeness he
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  created us with, that's peace.
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  And I think we talked in an earlier episode about patience.
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  We'll have a patience when normally, without the Holy Spirit in our life,
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  we would be impatient and edgy.
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  These are contrasting behaviors to our normal human behavior.
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  And they become evidence that the Holy Spirit is in us.
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  So when somebody says, I don't know how you're doing what you're doing and you
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  have such peace about it and you have such joy and it's because these are fruits
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  of having the Holy Spirit in us.
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  So it's contrary to our human nature. It is present evidence of the Holy Spirit.
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  So then who is the Holy Spirit in? Is it in believers or just everybody?
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  It is in believers. And it is a baptism.
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  And I think if you go back to the book of Acts, it probably makes it most distinct.
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  So there were churches that were actually coming to be that they had the beliefs.
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  They had the teachings of the apostles. they had been baptized with the baptism of John.
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  And like talk about it being the baptism of John because it was the baptism
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  for the remission of sins.
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  So it's like washing, washing away the sins.
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  But they were lacking the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
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  And in those situations, then the apostles come and I specifically,
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  I remember Peter coming and the Holy Spirit comes and anoints the group.
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  And all of a sudden they, I see it in chapter 8.
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  They had the preaching, the new good news kingdom. They were baptized, both men and women.
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  And Simon, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard in Samaria that Samaria had
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  accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.
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  When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit
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  because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them.
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  They simply had been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
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  Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
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  So it was actually a separate baptism in that, baptism of the Holy Spirit.
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  We see that also with Cornelius, that all of a sudden they have the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
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  And one of the manifestations of that was they spoke in tongues.
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  And I think in those settings, especially when we get into the book of Acts,
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  they would speak in somebody else's language.
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  So that that person who was basically illiterate of the language that the gospel
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  was being preached in otherwise would hear it in their own language.
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  So it'd be like if all of a sudden we meet on Sunday morning here at Kelowna
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  and we have Spanish-speaking people who don't know any English.
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  Yet the whole rest of the service is in English. and all of a sudden somebody
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  speaks in tongues and it's in Spanish so that they actually hear firsthand.
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  And what's really neat is when you speak in tongues and it's somebody like me who's monolingual.
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  I try to speak English, but I don't even do that well most of the time.
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  And so you have somebody who does not know the language and all of a sudden
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  they're speaking this language in a way that someone who is a native of that
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  language hears the word in their own tongue. That is...
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  That's the, I'd say, the biggest, best manifestation of tongues that there is.
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  Yeah. And that's what we read about so much in the book of Acts.
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  Because the linguistics of Acts is, while many of them were bilingual,
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  had Aramaic and maybe Greek, there were a whole lot of other languages.
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  Samaria had its own tongue.
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  Yeah. It would really be neat to all of a sudden hear it in your own tongue
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  like they did in Acts chapter two. Yeah. Good question.
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  Thanks. Very good answer. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
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  And we hope somehow that this discussion has added a little spice to your day.
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  We try to add spice to people's day. Yeah.
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  Maybe a little jalapeno here and there. Yeah. You can tell us how we're doing too. That's right.
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  Give us some feedback. Yeah. And let us know how things are going.
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  And we hope that this is a blessing to you and to your day.
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  And that maybe you'll share it with some others. That'd be all right, too.
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  Yeah. We might remind you that there's 165 broadcasts before this in the TMAD
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  bunch that Alex was in Rowan's seat. Yep.
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  And there's questions there. They're also answered as well.
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  So I think this is 172 broadcasts at this point.
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  So just a few behind us now. You've kept track of all of them, huh?
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  I'm glad that Podbeam does that for us.
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  It's a good thing. Yeah, that's a good thing. So God bless you.
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  Until we see you again, Lord willing.