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Response
After Jesus declared, “It is finished,” on the cross, “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” «When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. », (John 19:30). His lifeless body remained on the cross until it was taken down and placed in a nearby tomb (John 19:40-42). However, His spirit was elsewhere. Three days later, His body and spirit were reunited, and He rose from the dead (John 20). There is some speculation about the whereabouts of Jesus—specifically, where His spirit resided—during the three days between His death and resurrection.
The most explicit indication we have in Scripture of Jesus’ location between His death and resurrection is found in His exchange on the cross with one of the thieves crucified beside Him. The repentant thief requests to be remembered when Jesus enters His kingdom «And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. », (Luke 23:42), and Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (verse 43). Therefore, following His death, Jesus ascended to the place of divine favor where God resides—heaven. This is also where the repentant thief was destined.
When discussing Jesus’ whereabouts during the three days between His death and resurrection, another passage is frequently cited. First Peter 3:18–20 states, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).Lesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (ESV). Some take this to mean that Jesus, sometime between His death and resurrection, went to hell/Hades and made an announcement of some type to the “spirits” imprisoned there. Within this interpretation, the spirits Jesus addressed could be either demonic or human.
If the spirits mentioned in 1 Peter 3:19 are fallen angels, then those spirits were probably imprisoned because they were involved in a grievous sin before the flood in Noah’s time—Peter mentions Noah’s flood in verse 20. Peter does not tell us what Jesus proclaimed to the imprisoned spirits, but it could not have been a message of redemption, since angels cannot be saved «For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. », (Hebrews 2:16). If these were fallen angels, what Jesus proclaimed was probably a declaration of His victory over Satan and his hosts (1 Peter 3:22;Colossians 2:15).
But there is another interpretation of the 1 Peter passage. In this interpretation, the “spirits” are people currently in hell, but Peter is not saying Jesus made a special trip to Hades/hell to preach or proclaim anything. Rather, Peter is giving parenthetical information about something Jesus had done previously in history, namely, that He had “in spirit” preached to the people of Noah’s day while they were still living on earth. That wicked generation heard the message, rejected it, perished in the flood, and are now in prison. The word now in 1 Peter 3:19 is provided for clarity in the Amplified Bible and the New American Standard Bibles of 1977 and 1995, and it contrasts with the “long ago” (NIV) and “formerly”
(ESV) of 1 Peter 3:20.
According to this alternative interpretation, Christ was spiritually in Noah when Noah preached to his doomed neighbors. To clarify further, here is a rephrasing of 1 Peter 3:18–20: “Jesus was put to death in the flesh, but He was made alive in the Spirit (it was through this same Spirit that Jesus long ago preached to those who are currently in prison—those souls who disobeyed during the time of God’s great patience when Noah was building the ark).” According to this perspective, Jesus spiritually preached to the people of Noah’s time, and He did so through the prophet Noah, similar to how God speaks through us today when we proclaim God’s Word.
Ephesians 4:8–10 is another passage referenced in the discussion about Jesus’ activities in the three days between His death and resurrection. Quoting Psalm 68:18, Paul mentions about Christ, “When he ascended on high, he took many captives” «Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, And gave gifts unto men. », (Ephesians 4:8). The ESV states that Christ “led a host of captives.” Some suggest this refers to an event not elsewhere described in Scripture, specifically, that Jesus gathered all the redeemed who were in paradise and took them to their permanent dwelling in heaven. In other words, after securing their salvation on the cross, Jesus brought Abraham, David, Joshua, Daniel, the beggar Lazarus, the thief on the cross, and everyone else who had previously been justified by faith, and led them from Hades (the abode of the dead in general) to their new spiritual home.
Another interpretation of Ephesians 4 is that “ascended on high” straightforwardly refers to Jesus’ ascension. Christ returned to heaven triumphantly, as God. In His victory, Jesus had conquered and taken captive our spiritual enemies: the devil, death, and the curse of sin.
All in all, the Bible provides limited information.
Information about what precisely Christ did for the three days between His death and resurrection is limited. The sole certainty we have is that, as per Jesus’ own words on the cross, He descended to paradise. It is also safe to affirm that, having completed His work of redemption, Jesus did not endure suffering in hell.
