The Resurrection

THE RESURRECTION 

When Jesus gave up his Spirit to his Father, before he ascended, the Bible says he first descended - in his Spirit - on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. Jesus had spoken about these places when he told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar. The rich man who lived sumptuously in arrogant self-indulgence all of his life ended up in Hades and Lazarus who lived the life of a humble beggar at the gate of the rich man’s house ended up in Paradise, with Abraham. (Luke 16:19) 

Jesus had now descended to these places. Paradise was where there were millions of souls who had been waiting for him from the beginning of time. These had lived their lives on earth in hope, many of them guided by the Commandments through Moses, but many simply by a good conscience. They were locked away from eternity till Jesus would now come to get them. Jesus would also visit Hades the prison of lost hope.

The bible says that Jesus then preached to all those prisoners of time the message of the Gospel, the plan of the Father to send Jesus into the world to set people free from the captivity of sin and to bring his New Creation life to humanity. Jesus would have sat with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and many others in Paradise as well as his newfound friend that hung next to him on the cross and to whom he said, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’! He spoke to them and with them and he rested with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day.
The Bible says that before he ascended, he led the captives free (Ephesians 4:8) from the captivity of time, as they had waited till heaven came to get them. Jesus also declared the word of his truth to those lost in Hades who had resisted God and refused to listen to him, including those who were destroyed in the flood of Noah. 
1Peter 3:18 He died once for the sins of all sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them-- spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. 

The Book of Revelation also tells us that Jesus was given the keys of ‘Hell and death’ at this time, and with the key of freedom he was able to unlock those prisoners of the past in Paradise and take them into an eternal heaven.
Revelation1:17,18 Fear not; I am the first and the last: -- I am he that lives and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and of death.

On the third day when Jesus turned the key of freedom in the prison gate a tremor hit the universe. Power from Father and Holy Spirit in heaven was released into and through Jesus to overcome death and the grave - and that changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence. God had joined himself to his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ and now humanity could become a ‘New Creation Being’, joined in the Spirit with Jesus (2Corinthians 5:14). 

The time had now come for them all to leave, and Jesus led them on a triumphant upward journey, to their new home, his home in Heaven. The entire company was escorted by hosts of angels as they ascended ever upwards until they first reached the earth, (Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8, Psalm 24)). There they all stopped for a brief period of time, because there were things for Jesus to do there. The first thing that he had to do was to go to his tomb where his earthly body lay in its shroud. The Archangels Michael and Gabriel went ahead of Jesus to the tomb and found the guards there that the temple priests had appointed to stand watch at the tomb. As the angels alighted the ground shook and the massive stone rolled away as a huge burst of lightning hit the place sending the guards reeling headlong to the ground. They leapt up in fright and bolted. Jesus entered his tomb and united himself again to the wounded shell of his body, leaving the headpiece and shroud lying separated from one another in the tomb (John 20:7). 

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from that temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about and would have recalled vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby, and his time of kneeling in an agony of prayer when he accepted his cup of unbearable suffering. 

At that same time some women had prepared oils and spices according to the custom, to anoint the body of Jesus. On their way to the tomb, they were discussing the problem of how to move the huge stone that covered the entrance. When they arrived, they were astonished to see that it had been moved and the guards were nowhere to be seen. They peered inside the tomb and were met by the majestic appearance of Michael and Gabriel, sitting in the place where Jesus had been laying.

‘Are you looking for Jesus?’ Gabriel said. ‘He has come back to life as he said he would. Go and tell the disciples that he will be coming to see them, and that they are to wait for him in Galilee.’

The women ran to tell the disciples but one of them dropped behind and walked slowly through the garden, still confused and weeping. She almost collided with Jesus who was also walking in the garden, and she apologized, not recognizing him, thinking he was the gardener. This was Mary Magdalene. And he called her by her name and said, ‘It’s alright Mary, it is me.’

She ran towards him, but he held up his hand and said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and she shared the things that he had said to her.’ (John 20.17)

And now Jesus had to fulfill the offering of his blood to his Father in Heaven. The blood of animal sacrifice had been offered for the sins of the people by the High priest of Israel in the holy place of the temple for the last fifteen hundred years for the nation of Israel (Leviticus 16, Hebrews 9) but Jesus had just marked the end of blood sacrifice for sin for all time by sprinkling his innocent blood on the ground at Golgotha for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole earth.
Hebrews 9:11 But Jesus came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation. 

A very strange thing was also happening in other parts of Jerusalem. Hundreds of souls who had just accompanied Jesus from below and who had recently died were making the briefest of appearances to their loved ones. 
Matthew 27:52 And when the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. Many bodies of the saints who had died were raised up and came out of the tombs after his resurrection, and they went into the holy city and appeared to many.  

After the very brief visit to their astounded friends and relatives on earth in their new recognizable forms, they then had to regroup with Jesus and resume their journey to Heaven (Imagine the strange reality of this spiritual world). The magnificent procession began to ascend from their graves to the sky in glorious splendour with its escort of glorious angels. As their ascension took them closer and closer to the throne room a mighty voice could be heard proclaiming his majestic entrance.
Psalm 24:7-10 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!

At this command the heavenly music began. The sounds of pipes and trumpets, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, and a beautiful range of stringed instruments created a majestic symphony. Jesus had come home, and the Bible trumpets his victorious homecoming. 
Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he sustains everything in the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 
This was the moment - purification for the sin of all mankind had been made and now everything in the Universe was integrated into his Being of power.

Ephesians 1:19-21. how powerful is that divine energy that comes from God to us when we simply believe that he is the creator and generator of this supernatural power which exploded into reality when he raised Jesus from the dead and took him into heaven to sit next to him at his right hand. 21. This heavenly place and position took Jesus as God and man above any other force or realm of authority that can be named, whether on earth or in the heavens…and he has become the centre of all consequence and meaning in the universe.

All the angels and all those who had come with Jesus on the upward journey beheld their king in his place of honour and joined in the magnificent celebration. His time in heaven for these celebrations was momentary, as he had left the tomb just before dawn and had to return to earth that same day, still bearing the marks of the cruel wreath of thorns from his flogging, and the wounds to his hands and feet and side from the cross. He would now spend forty days on earth as a witness to his resurrection, to seal The Plan of his Father and see it implemented for the rest of time. At the end of those forty days he would return to Heaven, from where he would begin his new mission upon the earth through the Holy Spirit. 

Holy Spirit had accompanied Jesus every moment of his life on earth. He had joined himself to the human spirit of Jesus and had felt every feeling that Jesus had felt. He had known every one of his thoughts, and he had communicated every thought from Father God to him. Those thoughts became words in the mouth of Jesus, and Spirit caused those words to have life and power to all who heard Jesus speak. In this way Holy Spirit had also experienced life within humanity on the earth. After those forty days on the earth Jesus returned to Heaven and ten days after that, Jesus and Father sent Holy Spirit to the earth on the day of Pentecost and ushered in the New Creation being of God with us. 
Holy Spirit would become the bond between Heaven and earth for all time. He would fall like rain from Heaven upon the souls of mankind, seeking to awaken the spirit of humanity to the cosmic truth of what Jesus had done in joining mankind to God. 
Humanity could now live in the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and win its struggle against the mindset of lostness and separation called the law of sin and death. 
Within the human pain of this struggle against lostness and separation would be found the cry of Holy Spirit wrestling to join the minds and hearts of people to God. It is the Spiritual energy of God’s love that would never cease its activity in the human heart, subduing human nature, that it might resonate with the nature of God. Whenever this truth is embraced by a human heart, that heart will at last find itself at home, around the Family table, where it was destined eternally to be.