Adult Sunday School - Part 21 - The Grave

Eight destinations after death - by P.K. Odendaal – April 2019

Introduction and Part 1 – The Grave
 

Introduction.

I think we should know where we go from here quite often, but never so often as when we die. Yes, we might go nowhere as atheists believe when they are on earth and when they die, but we have a purpose. In fact a heavenly purpose for which we have been preparing since our birth and our death will be the culmination of our human career so to speak.

But, some of us may not land up where we intend or want to, because we have seven possible destinations to choose from while we live and one to go to when we die. These are The Grave, Hell, the Outer Darkness, The Bottomless Pit, Paradise and the Three Heavens, and for the sake of Catholics who read my articles, I will include and consider Purgatory.

Part 1 The Grave.

We will start at The Grave, not meaning the physical grave on earth and which is not Hell as some translations make it. It was used to keep souls in quarantine, so to speak, until the Messiah came to take the saintgs to Paradise. This is the place Jesus Christ went to directly after His crucifixion, to set the captives free.

 

It may trouble you that these saints can be saved without being reborn, but the fact is that if you died believing in Jesus Christ or in the Messiah before He died, then you will be saved.

  

The Bible says: In the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. We must note that there is also no suffering or enjoyment there. Heaven and Earth are knowledgeable of each other, but The Grave is totally cut off from both of these.

The visit of Jesus Christ was prophesied by Isaiah: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

 

Jesus Christ visited this abode of the Shadow of Death directly after His crucifixion as related in Psalm 24. Most of us incorrectly think that Psalm 24 is the entry of Jesus Christ into Heaven, but on close inspection that is not correct.

There is a cry going out asking who this King of Glory is. If it was Heaven crying out for the return of Jesus Christ, that would have been illogical, as Heaven knew exactly who He was and there would have been a joyful feast, but here the question raises fear and uncertainty. The Grave did not at that time know who He was as they have never heard of Him, apart from prophecy, having no knowledge whatsoever as quoted above.

This incident is borne out by a paragraph in the Gospel of Nicodemus, an Apocryphal book: AND while Satan and the prince of hell were discoursing thus to each other, on a sudden there was a voice as of thunder and the rushing of winds, saying, Lift up your gates, O ye princes; and be ye lift up, O everlasting gates, and the King of Glory shall come in.

 … after this another prophet, namely, holy Isaiah, spake in like manner to all the saints, did not I rightly prophesy to you when I was alive on earth? The dead men shall live, and they shall rise again who are in their graves, and they shall rejoice who are in earth; for the dew which is from the Lord shall bring deliverance to them. And I said in another place, O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

You might ask what authority Jesus Christ had when he took them out of The Grave, and for that you are reminded that Jesus Christ conquered mainly things: Death Hell and The Grave.

Proof that this happened is in the Bible: And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

 

I get the impression that The Grave was closed down when Jesus Christ moved those people to Paradise or back to Earth, but there is also a school of thought that it is still used as a roaming place for lost souls as used by Satan, when God asked him where he came from: ... and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
 

There is also good reason to believe that The Grave is also known as Abraham’s bosom and the Shadow of Death and the Valley leading thereto is often spoken of.