Hello everybody.
Today at lunch, Vince asked me a simple question that turned into a pretty big deal – with us, anyway. So, I thought I’d pass it along.
Vince asked me what Jesus preached in the heart of the earth when he went down there? I told him that Jesus would have had to preach the same thing he preached on earth. He had to tell them that he had come from heaven, and that he had died for the sins of the world, and that whoever believed on him would have eternal life. The people who heard Jesus preaching, whether they were in Paradise or Torment, would have had to believe what Jesus said in order to be saved in the end, the same way the people on earth had to believe. Nobody in the heart of the earth had the Spirit, and so, nobody in the heart of the earth knew the Son of God. Amy said she had always thought the people in Hades were excited and rejoicing when Jesus came there. But there was not a great celebration when Jesus descended into Hades. He was just another man who had died and went to where dead people always went when they died at that time. It wasn’t as if the people in Hades knew that this was the man who had raised the dead because the people that Jesus had raised from the dead were not down there to tell them. They had to believe the gospel just like everybody else had to believe it.
The righteous souls who were in Paradise had the kind of spirit that would have believed Jesus and the ungodly souls who were in Torment probably would have refused to believe him. Jesus could have told them that he was going to leave Hades in a few days and separate Paradise from Torment and take Paradise with him when he rose from the dead, but who could have believed that? Nobody had ever done that before!
The main point is that only those who have the Spirit can know the Son and nobody in the heart of the earth had the Spirit.
jdc
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John,
The scene that comes to my mind is where, in Luke 9:30, Moses and Elias appeared with Jesus. Were they in Paradise? Did they tell those there the messiah was coming to preach or did John the Baptist continue his ministry in Paradise.
Wendell
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Good questions, Wendell!
As for Moses and Elijah, neither of them was in Paradise. Nor could they go there. Paradise was for dead people. Elijah had never died, and Moses died but it appears that he was soon raised from the dead to prevent Satan from using his dead body (Jude 9). Moses and Elijah will return and preach to Israel, and be killed (Rev. 13), and then they will finally be taken into Paradise, which is now in heaven instead of in the heart of the earth.
Those two great men of God knew that Jesus had to die in Jerusalem, but they had no way of truly knowing either the Father or the Son because the knowledge of God comes through the Spirit, and “the holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
As for John the Baptist, he did not know the Son before he died, and death did not reveal the Son to him. Nothing in heaven or on earth or under the earth has ever revealed the Son of God to anybody! ONLY THE HOLY GHOST DWELLING INSIDE A PERSON REVEALS THE SON OF GOD TO THAT PERSON!
In Paradise, John could tell about seeing a dove light on Jesus, along with his other experiences on earth, and he could share with those who are with him in Paradise the messages the Spirit spoke through him on earth. But as for his ministry, it ended – for him – when died. Also, his baptism was only for Jews who were alive. And besides that, from what Jesus said in his parable about the rich man who died, it appears that John would not have found enough water in Hades to baptize anybody, even if he wanted to.
========= On 10/14/2014 4:33 PM, John Clark Sr wrote:
Trust me, folks. ALL wisdom and knowledge was hidden in the Son, and until the Son was not revealed until the holy ghost came. Trust me. NOBODY knew either the Father or the Son until then, and even at that, it took time for those with the holy ghost to realize all that had been revealed.
🙂
jdc
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Wow, that’s interesting. I always thought everyone there in hell knew exactly who Jesus was. Its amazing to now think they did not know!! Beyond my original ideas I didn’t know anything else. I would have guessed that only those in good spiritual condition and had been faithful to the law would have been glad to see Jesus.
Thank you so much for teaching us the truth! I love it!
Jenny