(Psalm 40:7, SOS 5:7, "Israel is the cultivated garden of humanity into which He planted His seed, His WORD, His beloved Son ready to be revealed to all the residue of humanity after His first appearing to Israel alone." Isaiah 49:6, Heb 10:9)
When Christ the exclusive messenger of God, came down from Heaven in His own flesh, the body that the Father had prepared for Him in the virgin birth:
Jesus performed His promise to save and to establish His eternal Kingdom called Israel, the same spiritual name given to Jacob for redemption and salvation by the person of Christ who would come after him. So, Paul identified the subjects and citizens of His eternal Kingdom in the resurrection as the "Israel of God" and confirmed that Jesus had initiated a new and eternal form of priesthood having fully identified Himself as the very Christ and High Priest, that they had modeled and given a prior witness of in worship throughout their generations.
He called the new priesthood of believers He initiated in His person and by His own mouth to gather the residue of humanity and represent His government from heaven wherever two or more would be gathered in His name, the Church, in accordance with His promise of old to do so. The new name that the mouth of the Messiah as the scriptures say would pronounce, He did pronounce.
Isaiah 62:1,2, Matt 16:18.
When Jesus talked about rebuilding the temple in three days after being torn down, the Apostles explain He was referring to His own body and the first resurrection from the dead, to incorporate the Church as His new building, when He speaks of rebuilding the glory of Jerusalem and the mountain of His leadership, He is referring to the New Jerusalem the eternal city not built by human hands, and the mountain of believing people from every generation during His reign from heaven gathered around His Enthronement in Kingdom, as living stones of His building, both on the earth through faith using the eyes of their understanding to behold Him where He is in every subsequent generation, and after death in the ascension of their souls to eternal preservation as depicted in Hebrews 12:22, until mortality is swallowed up by immortality in the complete fulfillment of that scripture that says, I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death, and death where is your sting, and grave where is your victory.
Hosea 13:14, 1 Cor 15:26, 54,55
The Apostolic message is in confirmation of the reality that Jesus came down from heaven according to the WORD that was given to the prophets, and that He ascended to heaven bodily after His resurrection in the which His temple had been rebuilt within three days and following the 40 days of proofs to the fact of which the original 12 are eyewitness.
The Apostle Paul having been born again after that specific time frame of the original 12, but who was caught up, entertained and taught by Jesus Himself in heaven, describes in EPH 4:9, that after Jesus' death on the cross, He descended temporarily to where every man who had died before had gone, called Hell, and the grave. (It should be noted here that there are two men whose souls have been preserved in heaven by Christ from before He descended from heaven through birth in the flesh, and that they will never die, of which we have the record, namely Enoch and Elijah, though like everyone else gathered there in festive gathering, they do not yet possess the immortal body promised to all who maintain faith in Christ during His resurrection ministry from heaven until death is finally conquered over all).
That there is a place where the righteous and the unrighteous were before contained in death together should be clear by the way in which the scriptures address the topic throughout, as an temporal holding place before Jesus Christ came in the flesh. I will not here attempt to prove out nor more explain that, except to say that it is there that Jesus descended to and visited and set the former captives free from, so that when He ascended from that place, He brought whoever He would from there to ascend with Him in the first resurrection, and led that form of indiscriminate captivity called death, hell and the grave, captive to His own administration in Kingdom as Christ in heaven from that time forward.
Matt 27:52
Now, for those that are partners with Him in the first resurrection, from that time forward, beginning with those who ascended with Him and also for us today participating by faith on the earth representing Christ resurrected in Kingdom, and after which also like them by the ascension of the soul to heaven after physical death since that time, and continuing daily in every subsequent generation, are presently said to be ruling and reigning with Christ in His messianic Kingdom in intercession until death is finally conquered over all at His appearing. We worship Him, in Spirit and in declaration of the Truth.
Rev 20:6, 1 Cor 15
Those persons whose souls had been previously contained in death, hell and the grave, were visited in His descent to their location, and some of them were released by Him to join Him in heaven by the power of His resurrection, and became part of the ever increasing cloud of witnesses in eternal comfort ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ from heaven while awaiting the final ending of death over all for receipt each of their own bodies like His glorious body in the resurrection yet to come.
Those that had been thereafter His visit retained in hell and non ascending, by His determination, and/or subsequently sent there during His present reign from heaven, would necessarily thereby and forever after be aware and tormented by a fearful looking forward to the final resurrection and eternal punishments in the Lake of Fire.
Upon inheritance of Kingdom, what King does not survey the entire scope of His Kingdom and visit every space and boundary?
And then He sets things in a preliminary and instant determination of order, albeit yet temporal in this case, to account for the sustained first order of natural creation in continuation of birth and death, and for the continuing separation of the righteous from the unrighteous, as being added to each separate location in the process of intermediary time by Jesus Christ consigning them either to Heaven or Hell as they are living and dying in His constant oversight from His exalted position and preeminence over all.
So during the reign of Christ and the current continuation of time given in hope for the greatest number in salvation and by reason of the same hope enduring, the wicked and the necessary death that rightly belongs to the wicked is in temporal continuation, while so, there is an anticipatory determination of temporal placement in hell after death of those who refuse representation by Christ in life. Those who have died without representation by Christ and are in hell after the first death, await a final and eternal reckoning yet to be accomplished at the day of the end as determined by Him who created everything called the second death, when death, and hell are finally cast into the Lake of Fire!
Revelation 20:14, 15.
That final disposition that remains to be effectuated at the resurrection of all when mortality is swallowed up by immortality yields a result of eternal placement either to the New Heaven and New Earth where there is only righteousness for those who have been awaiting the final resurrection in rule and reign with Christ in heaven and for those who will be changed at His appearing. Those having refused representation by Christ from the time of His appearing, and to the end are raised to final judgement and eternal placement in the Eternal Lake of fire for all of the unGodly, that final determination could not possibly be made while as yet there were anyone being born in the current case of natural process of procreation.
Paul speaks of our current reality and the disposition of our salvation in Romans 10:6-9 revealing that because Jesus has gone everywhere that a man whether in life or in death could possibly go, and since He has assumed the preeminent Authority over all, we should carry our hearts in full confidence and reverence for who He is as the ever living Son of God, and thereby come into agreement and partnership with His resurrection, to center our faith in His love for us, and avoid making those determinations as to the disposition of others prematurely by our own estimations. For when we think to determine that disposition without regard to His preeminence, we ignore that it is Jesus Christ who died and descended, and indeed governs over hell, and Jesus Christ who is the resurrection dwelling bodily and enthroned in Heaven governing overall, and more especially over those who are living in the faith of Christ and ascending to Him at death throughout every generation in His present Kingdom.
As to the argument of some that while Jesus was on the cross, and since He told one of the men being crucified with Him that he would be with Him in paradise that same day, and by reason of which, that it is not possible He descended into hell and based on this argument alone they dispute and redefine the meaning of other multiple scriptures which in a plain understanding say that He did descend into hell and even for what purpose He did so, I submit the following explanation.
Since, the case is so powerfully established throughout the scriptures that Jesus descended into hell at His death on the cross. We must begin to understand the fact that if Jesus brought the man with Him wherever He went thereafter attending to him and watching over His word to perform it for him, we could rightly understand that His temporal visitation to hell, and the man being in paradise with Him, to both be true. So that in this case and every other, to be with Jesus who is the resurrection and the life, is paradise indeed, and that it is entirely true that, Jesus descended into Hell after His death on that day as the scriptures and the Apostles support.
Who can possibly deny that anyone maintained in His presence of Spirit and eternal person as Christ, wherever a person might go with Him would be in paradise and to be with Him is to enjoy the guarantee of His safety in eternal life and hope of their own resurrection.
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