What did Jesus do while his body was in the grave?

 

Whatever one believes Jesus did or didn’t do while in the tomb, is of no consequence to their relationship with God. No one can say for certain what Jesus did while absent from his body. The scripture does not specify any event which may have taken place. We are to believe that Jesus, lived, died, was raised from the dead, and through Jesus we are the children of God. That basically is the gospel, or translated, good news.

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 A primary source of what happened during the time Jesus body was in the tomb are the traditional creeds of orthodox institutions:

 Catholic creed: Jesus Christ...

Was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven,

 Church of England Creed: Jesus Christ...

Book of Common Prayer (1662) Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell. Book of Common Worship (2000). Was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.

 Lutheran Church Creed: Jesus Christ...

was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. alternative reading: he descended into hell.

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Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people."  (When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)^[1] 

 From the lower parts of the earth to sitting at God’s righthand, stresses that Jesus fills all, from one extreme to the other. Jesus told his apostles prior to ascending that, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.”^[2] Isaiah uses the terms. heaven and lower parts of the earth, as opposite extremes.

Shout for joy, O heavens, for the LORD has done it! Shout joyfully, you lower parts of the earth; Break forth into a shout of joy, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it.[3]

 

But the righteousness that comes from faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).[4] 

 

 

In later Judaism the Hebrew word tehôm signified 1. The original flood; 2. The depths of the earth, in which corpses causing defilement; and 3. Under the influence of Persian and Hellenistic conceptions, the place in which runagate (renegade) spirits are confined.[5]

We find the third meaning of abyss mentioned above in the writing of Peter:

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell (the deepest abyss)[6] and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;[7] 

 

And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,[8] 

 The Greek word translated hell in 1Pet 2:4 is Tartaros̄, it is the only time the word is used in the New Testament. It signifies the “deepest darkest abyss”. This does not fit any description of where Jesus may have been.

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 A battle and victory over Satan appears to have taken place in heaven while Jesus was on earth. Giving his disciples power over demons was a pivotal point.

 The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!"  He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.  See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.^[9] 

 The disciples having power over demons demonstrated that Satan was losing his power.  The scene from the book of Revelations, depicts a battle in which Satan and his angels were cast out:

And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.^[10] 

The important point is that victory over Satan was accomplished by “the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” Paul told the Roman believers that by their lives, Satan would be defeated, “The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.”^[11] This looks back to the curse God put on the snake in the garden of Eden.[12] The Hebrew writer said, “through death Jesus might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”[13] “The blood of the Lamb” and “the death of Jesus”, are synonymous in the context of victory over Satan. Jesus was the supreme sacrifice, through which people have access to God.

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One of the thieves crucified at the same time as Jesus said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom!”  And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise.”[14] The word paradise means a garden or park. The name Eden referred to the location of the first paradise. Jews in New Testament times combined paradise with “end of the world” hope. In his writing Paul referred to a man who “was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words,”[15] To the faithful Jesus said, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.”[16] The language used suggests that the thief was looking ahead to the event of Jesus return in his kingdom, not to an immediate event connected to traditional thought on where the dead go. 

Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.[17]

The response of Jesus saying, “today you shall be with me in Paradise”, tells us that he himself would be in that same place.  One has to consider Jesus’ last statements on the cross;

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"[18] 

 

And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Having said this, He breathed His last.[19]

 

Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!"[20]

According to John, Jesus had completed what he came to do.

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 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.[21] 

For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.[22] 

 

This is why he was proclaimed to those who have died; it was so that, although physically they would receive the judgment common to all humanity, they might live by the Spirit in the way that God has provided.[23] (CJB)

 

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you."^[24] 

It is important to remember that there were no chapters or verses in the original texts. It is also helpful to read other translations of the Bible. The King James version was originally written in 1611. 1Pet 4:6 is in the same context as 1Pe 3:18-20, “He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who once were disobedient” and “the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead”. There is no second chance:

 ...it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,[25]

Jesus told a parable of two men; a poor man named Lazarus and a rich man:

...the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried.  In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom.  And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.'  But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.  'And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.'  And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'  But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'  But he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!'  But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" 

Jesus was, as in other parables, using the Jewish beliefs of the day concerning where people go when they die. The main point of the parable was to emphasize that what you do in life affects where you go in death. Another key point is that there is no second chance for people after death.

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[1] Eph 4:8-10

[2] Mat 28:18 

[3] Isa 44:23 

[4] Rom 10:6, 7

[5] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

[6] Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries

[7] 2Pe 2:4 

[8] Jud 1:6 

[9] Luk 10:17-19

[10] Rev 12:7-11

[11] Rom 16:20 

[12] Gen 3:15

[13] Heb 2:14 

[14] Luk 23:42, 43

[15] 2Co 12:4 

[16] Rev 2:7

[17] Mat 16:28 

[18] Mat 27:46 

[19] Luk 23:46 

[20] Joh 19:30 

[21] 1Pe 3:18-20

[22] 1Pe 4:6 

[23] 1Pet4:6

[24] Gal 3:8 

[25] Heb 9:27