DEAD, BUT NOT DORMANT

“Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior! Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!” So, tomorrow, we will sing and celebrate, “Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes!” 

Yet, what of that in-between time, when His body was sealed in the sepulcher?  Peter tells us that though His crucified body was in a tomb, His spirit was very much alive and active, (1 Pet. 3:18). Christ was dead, but not dormant.

The Bible does not teach, “soul sleep.”  Paul said, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,” (2 Cor.‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬‬).  Neither was Jesus in a state of unconsciousness between His death and resurrection. 

The Old Testament term for the world of the dead is Sheol and the New Testament word is Hades. According to the story our Lord told of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, there were two areas where the souls of the dead would dwell: “torment” for the wicked and “Abraham’s bosom” (figurative language for “paradise”). Recall that Jesus promised the dying thief, “today you will be with Me in Paradise,” (Lk. 23:43). Thus, when Jesus died physically, He was alive spiritually—closing His eyes on Calvary, He opened them in Paradise. He was dead, but not dormant.

What did He do during that time?  We know that in Sheol/Hades there is “a great gulf fixed,” so that none can cross over from perdition to paradise or vice versa, (Lk. 16:26), yet they can converse as we hear the rich man in torment crying out to “Father Abraham,” for a drop of water to be brought to him by Lazarus, (Lk. 16:24) and Abraham responds to him with the impossibility of that. They communicate with each other. Jesus was spiritually in paradise with the repentant thief that very day as He promised. He was there and “preached to the spirits in prison,” (1 Pet. 3:19). 

This was not an evangelistic sermon. The decision of where we will spend eternity is made in this lifetime—with no “second chance” after death. It was in this case a proclamation “to the spirits in prison, who were formerly disobedient…in the days of Noah.”  In torment, these fallen demons were locked away in a special prison. Peter would add this in his second epistle, “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;” (2:4). The Greek word for “hell” is Tartarus, the name of that special compartment in torment for these wicked demons to be imprisoned. 

Jude speaks of them also, “And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;”(Jude‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬‬).

It is my understanding that these demons in some fashion inhabited human form and were used by Satan—the Prince of Demons—to corrupt the human race by sexual relations with human women in Noah’s day, (cf. Gen. 6:1-8). The Serpent had been told after he seduced Adam and Eve in the Garden, “ ‘And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.’ ” (Gen.‬ ‭3‬:‭15‬‬). If the Devil could corrupt “the daughters of men,” (Gen. 6:1), then there would be no seed of woman to crush his head!  It would have worked, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD,” (Gen. 6:8).

Satan persisted in attempts to fully corrupt the nation of Israel and thus no Messiah would be born. Yet, God always had a remnant of believers. Even, when Messiah came, the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Yet, Christ remained sinless and on the cross, though the Seed of woman had His heel bruised—the Lord’s suffering and physical death—by that means, crushed the Serpent’s head!

So, Christ descended into the realm of the dead and proclaimed His victory over the Devil and his demonic hordes!

As bad as this sermon was for the imprisoned demons, it was glorious for the people of God in paradise. You see, the Old Testament saints were saved by faith in Christ just like we are—Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and all the redeemed (cf. Heb. 11).  They were saved by looking ahead to Christ’s atoning work on the cross, whereas we look back to it. Those saved in the Old Testament were saved by “the lay-away plan.”  You know how you find a Christmas gift for someone, so you don’t want it reserved. It is put in lay-away, until the price is paid, and then you possess it. So, the Old Testament saints went to paradise, or “Abraham’s bosom,” so to speak, until Christ would pay the price of their redemption. After His resurrection, and His ascension, He would empty that compartment in Hades and take the souls of those Old Testament believers to Heaven and into the presence of the Father. “Therefore He says: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.’ (Now this, ‘He ascended’—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)” (Eph. ‭4‬:‭8‬-‭10‬‬). 

He was dead, but not dormant!

GOD’S RULE OVER THE CREATION

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, And You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; In Your hand it is to make great And to give strength to all.” (1 Chron.29:11-12).

God claims dominion over all that He made.  David declares the comprehensive nature of it in these verses.

God rules over creation because:

• HE CAUSED IT.  Because God brought all things into existence, He exerts the right to rule over them.  If I make something, it is mine to do with as I please.

• HE CLAIMS IT.  Isaiah and Jeremiah in the Old Testament (Isa.29:16, 45:9, 64:8; Jer.18:1-23) and Paul in the New Testament (Rom.9:1-33; 2 Cor.4:7; 2 Tim.2:20) use the analogy of God being the Potter—shaping the clay according to His design.

• HE CONTROLS IT. Because He has made all things, His control extends to every facet of nature.  Not a raindrop falls from the sky, not a bolt of lightning descends to earth, not a blade of grass grows, or a breeze blows except by God’s command.  He is Lord over the angels, as He is called the Lord of Hosts.  He is Master over the demons—even Satan has to report in (Job 1:6-12, 2:1-6).  But, He isn’t a tyrant, “a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom” (Ps.45:6; Heb.1:8).

It’s comforting to know this day what I learned from a song, long ago as a child, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”

WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

 

Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit.  (Revelation 9:1)

From time to time, someone will say to me, “I’m going through hell!”  They are suffering and I sympathize, but they are wrong.  The horrors of hell are far beyond anything we know in this world.  There is coming a day, however, when the world gets a foretaste of hell.  Because people reject the heaven God offers, He will give them the hell they deserve.

When we come to the eighth chapter of Revelation, six seals have been opened on the scroll, and this brings the climactic opening of the seventh seal.  Beneath the seventh seal is written the decree of seven trumpets of judgment that are to be sounded.  Four of these terrible outpourings of wrath are described in that chapter.  The last three will be so horrible that they are called the three “woes.”  We will consider two of these woes that come with the fifth and sixth trumpet blasts, as detailed in Revelation 9.

All hell breaks loose when the lid to the bottomless pit is lifted.  That abyss is the present prison of some extremely evil spirits.  They have been imprisoned there since they nearly led the human race into total annihilation in the days of Noah (2 Pet.2:4-5; Jude 6).  They are pressing against the prison door even now—straining with all their might—hordes of hell longing to be free from their torment that they might unleash torment on the world again.  That key is at last handed over to the star fallen from heaven (v.1).  Jesus holds the keys for He is Lord of all (Rev.1:18), but now He will allow Satan to take the key and loose his minions.

Out boils the smoke of the abyss (v.2).  The result is that the sun is darkened and the air is defiled.  The demons take on the form of monstrous locusts (v.3-12).  Throughout Bible history, the swarms of locusts were a sign of God’s judgment.  Those brought devastation to vegetation, but these will spare the grass and strike the godless (v .3-6).  Their mission is to inflict unbearable pain to all who do not have the seal of God (that is—the 144,000 witnesses and those converted by their testimony).  Sinners will scream—insane with pain—yet, be unable to die.  The duration of this affliction will be five months (v.7-12).  Even the demons’ form will be frightening and fiendish.

After the sounding of the fifth trumpet and the first woe which ascend from below the earth, the sixth trumpet signals the second woe that descends from above the earth (v.13-21).  The altar, meant to be a place of forgiveness for those who receive Christ, will become the source of fury for those who reject Him (v.13-15).  If we do not accept the sacrifice of Jesus to pay the price for our sins, then we will have to pay the debt ourselves!  Fallen angels are chained, but in that day loosed.  These are bound up at the Euphrates River—Babylon—which is the polluted fountain of all false religion.  They will be in the vanguard of an army 200 million strong (v.16-19).  These will gather for the great jihad against Israel, perhaps this army is Russia and her Muslim allies (see Ezek.38-39).  The most remarkable thing is that people still will not repent (v.20-21)!  Their hearts are so hard; they had rather suffer this hell than submit to heaven!