bleechers's Blog

Overlooking the Three Days in the Belly of the Earth

One of the most overlooked (and misunderstood) parts of the resurrection story is Christ's three days in the heart of the earth. Peter stands before the nation of Israel and makes these three days the center of his Pentecost message of hope (acts 2:27-32). Let's pause and think on those three days.

The Lord Jesus did not see corruption in the grave. He told us that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish so would our Lord spend three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. The Lord went to the cross, gave his life back to the Father and then he was laid in the grave (hell). There He stayed and there He accomplished what no man has accomplished. He did not see corruption (decay). That is such a glorious fact that Peter dwells on it richly.


The Great Undoing of Death

In Adam all are under the curse of dust. In Adam we are all mortal, we are all corruptible. The Lord Jesus Christ undid death! In His resurrection we see our resurrection. It is only when we experience our own "undoing of death" (resurrection) that we will have "put on immortality" and "put on incorruption" (1 Cor 15).

Because of the doctrine of the Pharisees, borrowed from the Greeks, teaching that "souls" float around without bodies, the full glory of what Christ accomplished in His resurrection has been lost. The relevance of His three days in the grave, so central to Peter's message to Israel, is also diminished.

Paul argues that all is meaningless "if Christ be not raised." Paul rests all of our hope on the resurrection of Christ and on the hope, found in Him alone, of our own resurrection. William Tyndale argued that the human tradition of "immortal souls" reduced the doctrine of the believer's resurrection to a mere footnote. Our resurrection is not merely a footnote to our redemption, it is the end result of our redemption. God alone is immortal. Men must be made immortal. That immortality, as Paul emphasizes, is "put on" in resurrection.


The Comfort of Resurrection

Paul in First Thessalonians 4 and the Lord in John 11 both comfort the bereaved with the hope of resurrection. There is no thought of "bodiless souls" in heaven. When the Lord comforts Martha with the idea that she will see her brother again, she responds "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Our Lord does not say, "No, Martha, you'll see him in a bodiless form in a heavenly holding tank" or anything like that. He confirms her belief in the resurrection and comforts her with resurrection alone.

Our Lord's conquering of the tomb is our comfort. He conquered death and the grave. His three days in the grave without corruption and His resurrection from the dead give hope to all who face death. Job's hope was bound up in the promise that though the worms eat his flesh (in the grave) "in my flesh I shall see God." Job looked to his promise of resurrection alone.

Peter's great profession of faith in Matthew 16 is met by the Lord's pronouncement that the "gates of Hades" cannot prevail against it. Death cannot hold the believer in the grave. A profession of faith in the Lord is the key to the undoing of death's hold. Death's gates cannot hold in what God will raise.


Victory Over the Grave

We are all just dust given life (spirit) by God. We will all see corruption and return to dust. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Our hope is found solely in the death, burial and undoing of death accomplished by Christ. He saw no corruption that we may look forward to the day when we can say in our new, incorruptible bodies, "Death where is thy sting? Grave where is thy victory?"