WHERE DID THE JUSTIFIED ISRAELITES GO AFTER CHRIST’S DEATH?

Since the Lord through His own death, burial, and resurrection from the dead successfully fulfilled the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant, (which mandate involved Him functioning as Israel’s Redeemer to provide redemption, including the issue of ‘ransoming them from the power of death and of the grave’), this made it so that the legal requirement no longer existed which had formerly consigned dead saints to be placed in the holding compartment of hell in the lower parts of the earth to await the outcome of God’s promised redemption. Once the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant had been fulfilled that former legal requirement of remanding saints to the lower parts of the earth became null and void as part of the spoils of Christ’s victory over sin, over death, and over the one who had “the power of death, that is the devil.” Specifically in connection with this the Lord became the possessor of “the keys of hell and of death,” and having successfully fulfilled the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant He exercised the use of those keys in accordance with the spoils of His victory as Redeemer. Whereupon He delivered the saints who were there from that domain, and saints who die afterward no longer get consigned to that domain.

Wherefore saints in God’s program with Israel who died following the Lord’s successful fulfillment of the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant, (like Stephen at the end of Acts 7, and other saints during the persecution that followed, and the apostle James, and then eventually all of the remnant of Israel including Peter, John, etc.), did not depart into the holding compartment of hell in the lower parts of the earth, but they departed into the third heaven; specifically into the paradise section of the third heaven. Among other reasons, this is one of the reasons why Hebrews 12:22-24 says what it does to the members of the remnant of Israel about what they need to know exists in the realm of the heavenly Mount Sion that they have come unto. And what they need to know is that in that realm there are not only “the heavenly Jerusalem” and “an innumerable company of angels” that have always been there in God’s Heaven, but now there is also “the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven” and also “the spirits of just men made perfect.” And these are now there as part of the initial spoils of Christ’s victory in successfully fulfilling the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant.

So, once again, following Christ successfully becoming the victor over sin and death, and thereby becoming the possessor of the keys of hell and of death, saints no longer were subject to the legal requirement of being remanded to the holding compartment of hell upon death. Hence neither the dead members of the remnant of Israel departed into the lower parts of the earth, nor do we do so if we die in this present dispensation before it concludes.

Sincerely yours “in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:”

Keith Blades

Enjoy The Bible Ministries