Pastor, I Have a Question November-December 2013

QUESTION: Didn’t Jesus have to ascend into heaven on Good Friday to keep His promise to the thief, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise?”
ANSWER: Jesus promised the repentant thief that they would be together in Paradise that day. Then Jesus died: And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last (Luke 23:46). After Pilate determined Jesus was dead, he gave Jesus’ body to Joseph of Arimathea for burial. His body went to the grave, awaiting the resurrection on the third day, while His soul went to His heavenly Father. The repentant thief did not join Jesus in that grave, but his soul also entered heaven.
On the third day, Jesus’ body was vivified. His spirit returned to His body. He appeared—body and soul—to His people on earth. Luke reports Jesus’ ascension: The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:1–3, emphasis added). Forty days after Easter, with body and soul Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father in heaven.
The Bible teaches that death is a separation. There are three types of death: spiritual, temporal, and eternal.
When God sculpted man from the dust of the earth, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Adam became a living man. The Hebrew word for “breath” is variously translated as “the Holy Spirit,” “wind,” “spirit,” and “soul.” To animate His principal creation, God gave humans a soul. We have both a body and a soul.
God commanded the first couple not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil under penalty of death. When they disobeyed God, Adam and Eve did not die physically (temporal death), but they died spiritually. Because of their sinful nature, they—body and soul—were separated from God (read Romans 5:12 and Ephesians 2:1–5). All people have inherited their spiritual death.
Because of our inherent sin, we will die physically (Romans 6:23). Physical death is the separation of body from the soul: the body goes into the grave, and the soul goes to its eternal reward.
If we die physically while we are spiritually dead (being separated from God because of unrepentant sin) we will suffer eternal death. This is hell—separated from God for eternity.
If we die physically, having been made alive by God through faith in Jesus, our soul will go to be with the ascended Jesus in Paradise.
Jesus was born truly human, and He is always true God. He was born with a body and a soul. By living a perfect life for us, Jesus provided the only holiness that avails before God. On the cross, Jesus paid our debt to God because of our sin. As our Substitute, Jesus suffered eternal death—the hell that we earned (Mark 15:34). When He died physically (John 19:30), His soul went to Paradise, and His body was buried in a borrowed grave. The thief also died; his body was buried, and his soul was translated to Paradise with Jesus, just as He promised.
We have that promise also: When we die in the faith, our souls go to be with Jesus. Then on the day of resurrection, Jesus will reunite our souls and bodies so that we might live with Him forever in heaven.
Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after Easter and not on Good Friday. He removed His visible presence from His disciples. He will return at the consummation of all things.
Rev. Charles Keeler
Resurrection Lutheran Church
Winter Haven, FL
cjohnk@aol.com