Rest in Hope

Matthew 12:40 “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” 

On Holy Saturday, Jesus continued in the grave just as long as Jonah continued in the fish’s belly, three days and three nights; not three whole days and nights: it is probable, Commentaries point out that Jonah did not lie so long in the whale’s belly, but part of three natural days (nychthemerai, the Greeks called them); he was buried in the afternoon of the sixth day of the week, and rose again in the morning of the first day; it is a manner of speech very usual in that era. What happen on the Second day, which we called “Holy Saturday”. 

 

While certain Christian traditions, including Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Reformed Protestantism (especially Anglicanism and Presbyterianism) have robust doctrines of the descent of Jesus between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, there are differences between these traditions in their understanding of the descent clause in the Apostles’ Creed : “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead.”

 

Christ when he lay in the grave, is expressly said to rest in hope, as one assured he should not see corruption. The Apostle Paul proclaimed in Acts 2:22-27 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” The wages of sin is death, but Jesus never sinned. Once the blessed Redeemer paid for our sin (the sins of the world laid upon Him) on the Cross, He had no sin for Himself to pay. 

 

Scripture affirms that Jesus experienced death as all other humans who pass away before Christ’s return experience it. His human body was interred and his human soul departed to the place of the dead, an intermediate state and that Jesus experienced it as all humans do. In Second Temple Judaism, the most common view of the afterlife—one reflected in Jesus’s language in the Gospels—expected indeed an intermediate state in a place called Sheol (Hebrew) or Hades (Greek). All of the dead, righteous and wicked, enter this state, but they enter distinct compartments. The New Testament speaks of the righteous entering “Abraham’s Bosom” or “Paradise”. It speaks of the wicked heading to “Gehenna” or Sheol/Hades. The doctrine of the descent says Jesus, who had a human soul, maintained consciousness in an intermediate state. Specifically, he journeyed to the place he himself called Abraham’s Bosom, or Paradise. 

 

King David says concerning the Christ in Psalm 16:8-10, ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades. Christ when he lay in the grave, is expressly said to rest in hope, as one assured he should not see corruption. The Apostle Paul proclaimed in Acts 2:22-27 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. In resurrection Christ conquered death forever. 

 

Psalm 22:26b-28 “Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever!

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations.” Find rest in Hope with blessed assurance! 

 

We must take our measures from the last judgment; things are really, what they are eternally. In Christ, Brian