Spiritual Warfare - Jesus and Hades

Again, this is another chapter that I wrote in The Battle:  An Anthology of Spiritual Warfare, which is available in two volumes for Kindle.

Link to the Battle (Volume 1) on Amazon.com !

Link to the Battle (Volume 2) on Amazon.com!

 

 

What, exactly, happened between the moment that Jesus died on the cross and his resurrection three days later? Your mind might instinctively go to thinking of the rousing section of the song “The Lion Of Judah” – “he descended to hell yet was raised up to reign at the Father’s side.”   Or, if you are of a slightly older vintage, you might think of the hymn which contains the words “he hell in hell o’erthrew.”  Is this poetic language strictly correct from a theological perspective?   One might think so if you simply looked at the Apostles Creed which contains the words “he descended to hell.”  But it is not as simple as that and this chapter may perhaps remind us that we should not base our beliefs on songs or hymns and not even theological statements that aren’t taken straight from the Bible!

 Let’s deal with the Apostles Creed issue first.  The Apostle’s Creed was a theological summary which has been used by many Christians as a statement of belief for over 1,500 years and right up to the present day.  However, unlike the Bible, the content of the Apostles Creed was fluid for hundreds of years.  The oldest available version is a Roman one from Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra (around A.D. 337) and it does not contain the clause about “descending into hell”.  Apparently this clause first appeared in the Eastern church with Sirmium's version of 359 A.D. The first mention of the descent in the Western church appears in the writings of Rufinus of Aquileia, who included it in his baptismal creed around 400 A.D. Over time, the Latin church absorbed it and officially integrated it into the Creed in 750 A.D, over 400 years after the earliest version we have!  It has also been said that this clause was mistranslated from the original which makes the problem even worse!  The only option is to look directly at the verses in the Bible that could relate to this “alleged” event:

“’When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.’ (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)”  (Ephesians 4:8-10)

“by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”  (Hebrews 2:14-16)

“He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits - to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand - with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” (1 Peter 3:18-22)

“For David says concerning Him: ‘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. Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’ “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God…”’ (Acts 2:25-33 NKJV)

“I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:18)

 “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.”  (Luke 11:21-22)

“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” (Luke 23:43)

These verses have been interpreted in different ways by eminent theologians through history and here are just a few of them:

• Augustine believed Christ literally descended into hell but he admitted several uncertainties over the meaning of the proclamation to “spirits in prison” in 1 Peter 3:19.  Why, for example, should these people be singled out for such an honor, and who, if anyone, did Christ save with his preaching in hell?


• Thomas Aquinas said that Christ descended to two places—hell and purgatory—and that his purpose in each was different. In hell, he put unbelievers to shame, while in purgatory, he gave sinners hope for glory and the righteous deliverance.


• Martin Luther, though he believed Christ descended to hell, would offer no clear cut explanation for the event.


• John Calvin went so far as to describe the descent as symbolic, pointing to Christ's suffering at Gethsemane and the cross.

 

   So what are we to make of it all?  The nineteenth-century church historian Philip Schaff made an important distinction which really helps to clarify things.  He deemed the translation “descended into hell” unfortunate and misleading saying: “we do know from His (Jesus’) own lips that He was in Paradise between His death and resurrection. The term Hades is much more comprehensive than Hell (Gehenna) which is confined to the state of the lost.”

Precise terminology in our use of Bible words is important here.   “Sheol” and “Hades” and interchangeable terms which are quite distinct from “tartarus”, “gehenna” or the “lake of fire” – each of which refers to a permanent place of residence.  Hades is a temporary holding place.  We understand from the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 that there is a divide which we arbitrarily denote by upper, also known as Paradise or Abraham’s bosom (a place of rest), and lower designations (when it should actually be right and left!). Ephesians 4 makes it clear that Christ did descend – but where exactly? Acts 2 tells us the part of the answer – Hades, temporarily for God would not leave Him there.  Luke 23 gets more specific – Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would be with Him in Paradise - so we deduce that Christ went to upper Sheol where Lazarus was - the (then) temporary abode of righteous departed souls.  (We will have to leave aside the separate question regarding the detailed criteria to determine who is sent to Upper or Lower Hades and trust to the sovereignty and justice of God).

The next question to be tackled is what actually happened there and what do the extremely cryptic verses in 1 Peter 3 relate to?  The respected commentators, Gill, Clark and Barnes, take the same view as John Miller in his “Notes”, with the following general interpretation:

·    Christ rose from the dead being made in alive in the (Holy) Spirit in which He had (previously) preached in Noah's time (through Noah) to those who were then ('once') disobedient to the preaching

·    As a consequence of this disobedience, the spirits of these contemporaries of Noah were imprisoned in (lower) Sheol.

·    Christ never visited lower Sheol at any time and there was no opportunity for these souls to repent (see Hebrews 9:27)

 In other words, 1 Peter 3 should not be linked with the descending of Jesus mentioned in Ephesians 4 at all – they are not related.  Why mention Noah in the first place?  Perhaps Peter was trying to draw some parallels between Noah’s experience and his readers experience – readers who were going through a pretty tough time:

-          A righteous minority surrounded by an unrighteous majority

-          God’s judgement near or may be near (1 Peter 4:5, 7; 2 Peter 3:10)

-          The need to witness boldly in the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 3:14-17; 4:11)

-          Salvation will come in the end (1 Peter 3:13-14; 4:13; 5:10)

-          The symbolic value of water - made meaningful by Christ’s resurrection

But we digress. Having ruled out 1 Peter 3 as a commentary on the descent to hell, where next?  Are we to believe the various members of the “Word of Faith” movement who teach that Jesus endured three days and nights of unimaginable abuse at the hands of Satan and his hordes of demons?

Frederick K.C. Price explains it this way:  “Do you think that the punishment for our sin was to die on a cross? If that were the case, the two thieves could have paid your price. No, the punishment was to go into hell itself and to serve time in hell separated from God...Satan and all the demons of hell thought that they had Him bound and they threw a net over Jesus and they dragged Him down to the very pit of hell itself to serve our sentence.”

Kenneth Hagin teaches that: “He (Jesus) tasted spiritual death for every man. And His spirit and inner man went to hell in my place. Can’t you see that? Physical death wouldn’t remove your sins. He’s tasted death for every man. He’s talking about tasting spiritual death.”

Kenneth Copeland asserts: “When Jesus cried, ‘It is finished!’ He was not speaking of the plan of redemption. There were still three days and nights to go through before He went to the throne...Jesus’ death on the cross was only the beginning of the complete work of redemption.”

As ever, we have to go back to what the Bible actually says – and when we do, we find that the above teaching is wholly false.  As a general point, this erroneous teaching seems to overlook the important fact that Jesus is an omnipotent being whereas Satan is not – the inequality in any “struggle” would lead to a complete mismatch and any “referee” would stop the fight before it had even begun.  But, specifically, Hebrews 2 makes it quite clear where the battle was won.  It was won totally, utterly and once for all at the cross – it was at the moment of Jesus’ death that Satan’s power was completely destroyed – it was here, not later, that the “strongman” of Luke 14 was overcome.  The work was done and he was entering his rest.

It is Ephesians 4 which tells us what was also going on in those three days and any reader in the first century would have spotted the meaning of Paul’s picture language in an instant.  Subjects of the Roman Empire would have seen a victorious conqueror returning to their home base with a string of prisoners in their train, proof and token of the victory just won on the battlefield – and freely giving gifts in celebration.  But here, the scene is turned upside down – Jesus the Victor is not bringing His prisoners with him on his return journey back to the base of heaven, he is bringing those He has liberated from prison in two senses – the prison of the fear of death which had enslaved them all their lives and the actual prison of Hades which they had experienced once they had died. 

And so we see this descent, in part, as a victory parade where Jesus collects the trophies of grace that were already won at Calvary, the gates of Hades having been opened by his victorious death.  And the victory parade has one more set of gates to go through – the gates of heaven.  What a scene for our minds to ponder on, as F.A. Perigo did in the following extract from NT magazine in 1951:

“Consider the welcome at the home-going of the Lord Jesus, so graphically illustrated in Psalm 24. Here are angels upon angels - there are perhaps 100,000,000 (see Revelation 5) all rendering homage to this great and glorious Person.  They had, with wonder and amazement, watched His lowly, but holy, pathway on earth, while He mingled with the human race, supremely perfect in word and work, so dignified in every way that it even calls our cold, poor and unresponsive hearts to deep and glad worship! Yes, myriads of these celestial beings - seraphim, those so near the throne that they become the celebrants of God's holiness, and constantly cry, "Holy, holy, holy;" cherubim, executants of God's governmental dealings with this earth; these all, with welcoming joy, state how fittingly it is that the Son of God should be granted the overlordship of creation, by virtue of: (a) Creatorial right, (b) Redemptive right and (c) Right of birth.  Perhaps the Spirit of God by the Psalmist gave a hint of this, in the words:

 

“Lift up your heads, you gates;

be lifted up, you ancient doors,

that the King of glory may come in.

Who is this King of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty,

the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, you gates;

lift them up, you ancient doors,

that the King of glory may come in.

Who is he, this King of glory?

The Lord Almighty —

he is the King of glory.”

 

His entrance into heaven was majestic, and He is lauded as "the LORD strong and mighty". Truly, the triumphant entry of the Victor! Nor did He enter alone, for there were the spoils which He had won in His victory.  Rising from among the dead, the glorious Victor led forth a multitude of captives from Satan’s domain, the Old Testament saints whose souls had been waiting in upper Sheol, to accompany Him in His triumphant entry into the glory. What a profound shock to Satan and the wicked spirits in the heavenlies as they witnessed the Son of God, His humiliation and sufferings over, passing upward to the heavens to the right hand of God!”

We thank God for the truth of this and also the wonderful reality that, due to the cross-work of Christ we no longer have to face a temporary existence in Upper Sheol when we die – it is now an empty place because post-resurrection, all believers who die go straight to be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) – what a prospect!  Hallelujah!

 

Spiritual Warfare - Wild Beasts at Ephesus?

This article is taken from The Battle - An Anthology of Spiritual Warfare, which is available in two volumes for Kindle.

Link to the Battle (Volume 1) on Amazon.com !

Paul’s Battle - Wild Beasts at Ephesus

When we talk about the battle of the Christian, we don’t usually think of physical combat in a literal sense.  But there is a very curious verse that seems to indicate that Paul got himself involved in such a thing – and it is a verse that has caused great debate among Bible scholars for centuries:

If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Corinthians 15:32)

The purpose of this chapter is to explore what Paul may have meant when he talked about fighting wild beasts and then, more importantly, explore why Paul was talking about wild beasts in the first place.   There is something here that is key to apply to our own spiritual battle - but more of that later.

So, fighting with wild beasts where you, Paul?  Literally, or figuratively, may we ask?  And, if figurative, who were you talking about?

Option 1 – Persecuted in the arena

This option believes that Paul really did fight wild beasts at Ephesus.  If you are like me, you may be surprised to know that there are a number of learned people who take this view. Historically, it is not impossible that the event really did happen.  There was a large arena at Ephesus which could well have seen gladiatorial combat and fights with wild beasts.  We know from history that many Christians went to their death in such places under great persecution and in the most horrifying of circumstances. There are also some quite intriguing verses that could be interpreted as referring to such an event:

 

“But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:17)

“For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.” (1 Corinthians 4:9)

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)

Was Paul referring to this incident in the above verses or would that be reading something into it that simply isn’t there?  Well, many believe that it is highly unlikely that Paul actually fought wild beasts in Ephesus and there are at least three reasons that can be put forward:

1) Paul most likely would not have survived it to be able to tell the tale!  Even if you have watched the film Gladiator, you will know that the survival rate for gladiators was very, very small – and these were trained warriors.  Paul was, by historical accounts, small, bow-legged and with an unimpressive physique – although used to working with his hands as a tent-maker, we have no evidence that he was skilled with weaponry.  He could, of course, have been miraculously delivered out of the mouths of wild beasts just as happened to Daniel.  But see the next points…

2) If it did really happen, it is very odd that he doesn’t recount it along with his other sufferings and hardships in 2 Corinthians 11:23-29. Luke makes no mention of it in Acts either which would also be strange bit of course an argument from silence is not the strongest.

3) If he had been thrown to the beasts, it is said that he would automatically have lost his Roman citizenship - but we know from the Book of Acts that he still held it when he went before Caesar.

So a real event cannot probably be ruled out, but perhaps the most likely scenario is that if Paul was really referring to wild beasts, he meant it in a rhetorical sense – “if” I had fought wild beasts…

Option 2 – People of Ephesus

When we consider this option, we have to accept that the scene described in Acts 19 has elements which remind you of a herd of wild beasts!  Paul was teaching publicly that hand-made images of Greek gods were not gods, but false idols. This teaching ran especially annoyed the Ephesian artisans because the temple of Artemis was in Ephesus and many artisans made a profit from creating and selling gold and silver statues and other religious artifacts. In the scene in Acts 19, the city is enraged and several of Paul’s Christian traveling companions are dragged into the midst of a mob, many of that mob had no idea why they were there!  They had simply got caught up in it all – it must have felt like they were in the middle of a herd of stampeding buffalo and that they could be squashed flat or torn limb from limb at any moment.

The drawback with this argument seems to be that Paul didn’t fight with them, either metaphorically or literally.  He was taken out of that situation for his own safety.  Of course this was not the only time that he was at risk from a mob during his missionary career – it was one of those occupational hazards.

Option 3 – Philosophers

The third option is that Paul is referring to some philosophers who opposed him when he contended for the gospel.  We don’t have the space to go into a lot of detail about one bunch of philosophers who were known as the Epicureans - so you can do your own research.  But it was the Epicureans who came from the “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” school of thought.  To put it another way, they were in favour of a pretty hedonistic lifestyle because this life was all that they had.

The drawback to this theory is trying to understand exactly why Paul would have called these people “wild beasts” – it is possible that their philosophy gave them a license to live wild, uncontrolled lives that gave into “animalistic behaviour.
 

Option 4 – Principalities and Powers

Others see the wild beasts as a reference to the evil spirits, or ‘beasts’, at work in the demon-possessed, sorcerers and idolaters of the city.  In Jewish apocalyptic circles, the Greek word translated here as “beasts” was commonly used in reference to evil spirits and supernatural monsters. This connects with referring to demons as wild animals, a practice that Paul may well have encountered in Ephesus.

We know that folk religion, syncretism, magic and mystery cults were pervasive in 1^st century Asia Minor. In fact, Ephesus itself was known to be an epicenter of magic and witchcraft arts and the epicenter of the cult of Artemis - one of the major Greek goddesses known, amongst other things, as the Lady of the Beasts, the bull goddess and the huntress. As a huntress, she is said to have traveled in woods in the company of dogs, wild beasts and mountain nymphs – plenty of wild beast links here!

Paul’s ministry here was filled with exorcisms and power encounters (see Acts 19) and Paul’s own letter to the Ephesians reminds us that we do: “not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” (Ephesians 6:12).  Further evidence may be taken from the fact that evil spirits in magic were often summoned through the images and organs of wild animals. Also, in Daniel and Revelation, we see beasts used to describe massive spiritual opposition to God’s people.   Finally, we see the devil is described in 1 Peter as a “roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  The evidence is certainly intriguing but not conclusive.

Option 5 – Passions

It appears that since Plato and at least up until the time of Paul’s writing, “fighting the wild beasts” was euphemistic for struggling with human passions, and especially of a sexual nature.  In particular, the philosopher, Dio Chrysostom described lusts as “savage beasts” which had to be destroyed and noted that if this was not done thoroughly they would soon overwhelm and destroy. Was Paul using the phrase euphemistically to spare the blushes of his readers?  Certainly, we know that Ephesus was rife with sexual immorality.  The temple of Diana was populated with hordes of prostitutes associated with the temple worship – but it is perhaps hard for us to see someone as experienced as Paul being enticed by such an apparently obvious temptation.  We know that Paul spoke of these passions in relations to marriage:

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)

It could be argued that if Paul had a particular issue with sexual temptation, he would have followed his own advice of marrying (assuming, of course, that he could find someone willing to take him on!) but the theory cannot be discounted entirely.

What is the message for us today?

Whatever Paul meant by “fighting with wild beasts”, it would be a travesty if we missed the major point that he was trying to make in this chapter.  The key to this passage is understanding the role of the resurrection – this theme was at the forefront of Paul’s mind when he was writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus.  All of 1 Corinthians 15 is devoted to the hope of the bodily resurrection of believers in Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice on the cross.  Why did Paul fight with wild beasts?  There was only an advantage to it because of one thing – the amazing reality that his body was going to be resurrected to eternal life. What do we need to remember constantly?

1. There will be eternal consequences of the battle that we are fighting here on the earth.  There should be no such thing for the Christian as simply “living in the moment.”
2. Our main priority in life is not simply to make ourselves comfortable and enjoy the pleasures of life while we can.  But nor is the Christian’s life all about defeating each day’s beasts (whatever form they may take for us as individuals); it’s about the bigger picture - our identity and life, both today and eternally, which is given meaning and power through the empty tomb.
3. There is still something to be fighting for.  “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” is the talk of fatalists, but it is also the talk of the defeated.   The phrase Paul uses is taken from Isaiah 22:13, referring to the Jews who were besieged by Sennacherib and the army of the Assyrians. The prophet says that instead of weeping, fasting and humiliation, as they should have been doing in those circumstances, they had given themselves up to feasting and revelry.  They had come to the conclusion that there was no use in offering resistance to the enemy, or in calling upon God for his help – it was too late and there was nothing that could be done now.   Paul never gave up the fight until the day he died and neither should we, no matter how tough the battle gets and how much that defeat seems to be the only outcome.  The empty tpmb should remind us that, actually, the battle is already won.

Great mp3 sermons online!

YFR 2012 was held on June 20-24, 2012 at Cefn Lea Christian Centre in Wales.  The subject for the 4 day event was "The Battle" or spiritual warfare.  The keynote addresses were recorded and are now available for free download - they are all highly recommended.  Links to the podcasts are below for your convenience but you can also download them from the Itunes podcast store by simply searching for "YFR 2012".

More information about YFR (and more addresses from previous events) can be found at www.youthfellowshiprally.com


http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-opening-address-martin-jones/

http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-the-battle-for-the-soul-part-1-karl-smith/

http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-the-battle-for-the-soul-part-2-mark-imoukhuede/

http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-the-battle-for-the-heart-stephen-mccabe/

http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-the-battle-for-the-mind-brian-johnston/

http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-the-battle-for-strength-phil-brennan/

http://yfr.podbean.com/2012/06/29/yfr-2012-closing-address-greg-neely/