Wherefore He said, When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave Gifts unto men. (Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the Earth? He Who descended is the same also Who ascended up far above all Heavens, that He might fill all things) (Eph. 4:8–10). These Passages speak of Christ descending down into the “lower parts of the Earth,” which refer to Paradise, and then ascending to Heaven. The idea is this: Before the Cross, which paid the terrible debt of sin, and which satisfied the demands of a thrice-Holy God, all Believers who died went down into Paradise, which was next door, so to speak, to the burning side of Hell. Only a great gulf separated the burning side from the Paradise side (Lk. 16:26). These individuals, which probably numbered many, many thousands, could not be taken to Heaven upon death (their soul and spirit), because the blood of bulls and goats was insufficient to satisfy the sin debt (Heb. 10:4). These individual, although saved, were still captives of Satan, hence, the phrase, “He (Jesus) led captivity captive.” This means that all of these people who had been captives of Satan, even though they were in Paradise, were now made captives of the Lord Jesus Christ once the sin debt was paid. After Jesus died on the Cross, He first of all went down into Paradise to deliver these individuals, whose very Salvation depended on the Cross. With the Cross now an accomplished fact, Satan had no more claim on them, no legal right to hold them any longer, so Jesus made them His captives and took them with Him to Heaven. Since the sin debt has been paid at the Cross of Calvary, now when a Believer dies, the soul and the spirit of such a person instantly go to be with the Lord in Heaven. It’s been that way ever since the Cross. The sin debt has been paid, so Satan has no more claim (Phil. 1:23). Furthermore, when Jesus went down into Paradise, which was in the heart of the Earth, and liberated those souls, He didn’t go down defeated, as some claim, but rather as a Conqueror. The price had been paid, the victory had been won, and, due to the fact that every single sin was atoned—past, present, and future, at least for all who will believe—the Resurrection was now a given. In other words, there was no doubt that He would be raised from the dead. The Scripture says that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). If even one single sin had remained unatoned, Jesus could not have risen from the dead. But due to the fact that all sin was atoned, the Resurrection was guaranteed. That’s why He constantly told His Disciples, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the Elders, and of the Chief Priests and Scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk. 8:31; Mat. 16:21; 17:22; Lk. 9:22). In all these accounts, He plainly told them, “After three days I will rise again.” The descent of Christ into Paradise, where He delivered all the Old Testament Saints, and His ascent into Heaven, all as a victorious Conqueror, were all made possible, totally and completely, by the Cross.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 12:13:17 +0000
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