Objection: Faith Preachers Are Trinity-Denying Heretics Because They Teach That Jesus Died Spiritually

We must address two things in this objection.  The first is whether believing that Jesus died spiritually really denies the Trinity and constitutes heresy that will send its adherents to hell.  The second is whether in fact Jesus DID die spiritually.  A lot is on the line with this one, as is evident by the scary warnings put out by those who consider people who teach that Jesus died spiritually to be evil, demon-inspired cultists!  The article below is typical of what you will find on internet “anti-word-of-faith” attack sites:

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DON’T LET THE JDS (JESUS DIED SPIRITUALLY) DOCTRINE DRAG YOU INTO HELL
by Harah C. Hunter

The Jesus Died Spiritually (JDS) teaching in the word of faith movement is damnable heresy that leads people to hell.  It assumes that Jesus as God watched Jesus the Man go to hell, thus splitting Jesus into two parts, which is completely cultic teaching that denies the Trinity.  Nestorius, who taught that there were two Jesus-es, one divine and one human, was rightly condemned as a heretic, as the modern word of faith proponents of Nestorianism should be.

When Jesus said, “It is finished,” it meant that He did not have to go to hell or do anything else because the phrase meant that our debt was already paid in full on the cross.  Jesus did not literally become sin; 2 Corinthians 5:21 is only figurative of Him taking on our sin.  The statement that Jesus descended into hell should never have been added to the man-made Apostles’ Creed.  “Lowest parts of the earth” even means a womb in Psalm 139:15, so we cannot say that Jesus was literally in the lowest parts of the earth.

To say that Jesus died spiritually and therefore went to hell is a doctrine of demons, so you must avoid any involvement with word of faith people who teach it, lest YOU be dragged into hell with them.

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Here’s the first of many shockers in this article: Denying the Trinity does NOT make you a heretic or prove that you are unsaved!  Anyone who believes that God raised Jesus from the dead and confesses Him as Lord is a Christian, not a hell-bound heretic (Romans 10:9-10), regardless of his view on the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, or whether Jesus died spiritually!  Oneness Pentecostals in particular do not believe in the Trinity, but they are saved anyway (even though they don’t think you are if you don’t speak in tongues).  People need to be careful about flinging the “heretic” label at people with whom they disagree on a doctrinal point.  Plenty of sincere Christians take opposite views on this topic.  I’m glad our Christianity is not so fragile that we can lose our salvation over our position on a side issue like this one.

Also, I’ve never heard anyone who preaches that Jesus died spiritually when He “became sin” deny that Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity or deny that He is God, or for that matter deny that God exists in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The theological objection seems to be that a holy God could never die or take on a sinful nature.  However, a holy God HAD to take on our sins to redeem us from them.  They weren’t Jesus’ sins; they were ours.

So if you’re ready to hurl mud at anyone who would suggest that Jesus bore sickness, poverty and spiritual death in our place, you should first consider a lot of Scriptural statements concerning the matter.  At the very least, you will discover that there is plenty of Scripture to support the doctrine that Jesus DID die spiritually and DID have to be born again, so even if you disagree, there should be enough evidence for you to put down your rocks before you hurl them at a fellow believer.  This issue is not unlike the issue of the timing (or even existence) of the Rapture – Scriptural arguments are made by Christians with varied opinions on that issue.  None of those different opinions would make someone a heretic.

It Matters How You Define Spiritual Death

The idea that Jesus died spiritually is not new.  Isaiah 53:9 (which is certainly not new) refers to Jesus’ deaths in the plural, as stated in the famous Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary found in many denominational church libraries since the mid-1800’s!  (I verified that commentary’s claim in the Hebrew.)  That commentary states that Jesus “endured death in both senses; spiritual, during His temporary abandonment by the Father; physical, when He gave up the ghost.”  This objection, however, is about the “Word of Faith” definition of Jesus dying spiritually (popularized by E. W. Kenyon) that Jesus’ spirit was dead – not merely separated from God – and needed to be born again before He rose.  That is definitely NOT mainstream and we will look at this at length to determine whether it is unbiblical, or worse, heretical as charged.

Forsaken by God – Effect or Definition of Spiritual Death?

Adam no longer had sweet fellowship with God after he sinned.  In his case, there is no question that he “died spiritually” in the Kenyon sense.  His spirit was dead and his guilty conscience caused him to hide himself.  His spiritual death is what brought the curse of physical death into the world (Genesis 3:19).  If Adam had remained sinless, He would never have died physically.  That alone raises a point important to this discussion – if Jesus stayed “spiritually alive” the whole time He was on the cross, it would have been impossible for Him to die physically because the curse of death would not apply to Him.  He would have been in the same condition Adam would have been in if he had never sinned.

It should be accepted as a given that Jesus was separated from God when He cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”  I am aware that some commentators think He was just quoting a Psalm, but that particular reference was the first verse of Psalm 22, which is clearly a prophecy about Christ’s sufferings for us, although David may have experienced some of those sufferings himself.

Matthew 27:46:
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Mark 15:34:
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Note that Jesus never indicated that God un-forsook Him before He died.

But now the question is, did God forsake Jesus because that WAS spiritual death and He had to taste death for us, or because He was spiritually dead at that point and our sins that He had taken on were causing Him to be separated from God?

I believe it was our sins that He was bearing (having none of His own) that led to that separation, meaning that His separation from God was the effect of spiritual death as opposed to being that “spiritual death” itself.  After all, in Isaiah 59:2, the Israelites’ sins that separated them from God were committed by people who sinned because they were already spiritually dead.  Their separation was the effect of their already spiritually dead condition.

Jesus’ loss of the right to fellowship with God was indicative that He had taken on the First Adam’s spiritual death – to redeem us from it so that we would NEVER have to lose fellowship with God!  (For those still clinging to the erroneous teaching that sins still separate a Christian from God, please see What 1 John 1:9 Really Means.)  He was considered unrighteous because he was bearing our sins.

Where Did Jesus Go Between His Death and Resurrection?

This hot issue has been debated for a LONG time because it’s one of those topics like the Rapture that we might wish that Scripture discussed more.  The writer(s) of the Apostles’ Creed stated, “He descended into hell,” but some churches have omitted that controversial phrase, and then there is much debate over whether “hell” means the place of punishment where the rich man went or a different “compartment of Hades” known as Abraham’s Bosom where Lazarus went.  The difficulty, as with the matter of the Rapture, is that there seem to be Scriptures to support both points of view!  The intricacies of this are described at length in a separate article, but there is considerable overlap between this question and the issue of Jesus dying spiritually.

The separate article makes the case that Jesus went to what we would think of as hell – a place of punishment and torment.  Fortunately, as Peter said (quoting Psalm 16:10), His soul was not left in hell.

Was the Cross Enough to Secure the Plan of Redemption?

People who don’t believe that Jesus went to hell like to point to the cross and say that it was sufficient to complete the plan of redemption.  Thus, Jesus would not have had to go to hell for any reason after He died on the cross.  In particular, they cite His statement, “It is finished” to support the idea that the plan of redemption was finished at that point, not requiring any further action on His part.

As a very young believer, I was taught in a popular evangelism program that “It is finished” was a Greek word meaning “It is paid in full” or “The account is settled”.  However, that conclusion can only come from sources outside the Bible, as this form of the Greek word teleo cannot be proved to mean “Paid in full” based on the use of the word teleo in the Bible.  While it can mean pay (e.g., Matthew 17:24 and Romans 13:6, which both refer to paying tribute), there are many more places where the word is translated otherwise – finished, performed, accomplished, fulfilled, filled up and expired.  If you go by the overwhelming usage of the word in Scripture, you cannot make a case that it must mean paid in John 19:30.

The only other place in the Bible where the specific form of the verb teleo used in John 19:30 appears is John 19:28 – in both cases it is the specific word tetelestai.  It is the word accomplished in John 19:28: “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.”  One could say that this other verse also shows that all things were now “paid in full,” though one could also argue that if the word meant accomplished in John 19:28, then accomplished would be a valid translation two verses later.

The only way I see tetelestai translated in John 19:28 or John 19:30 in any mainstream translation is accomplished, finished or completed.  Young’s Literal Translation translates tetelestai in John 19:30 as “It hath been finished.”  NO mainstream translation at this writing renders it “It is paid” or “It is paid in full.”  While the non-biblical arguments for the word meaning “paid in full” are interesting, it is evident that no Bible translators considered that evidence to be sufficient to make their translations actually say “Paid in full.”

However, my conclusions remain the same even if the word DOES mean “Paid in full,” so if you want to argue that merchants wrote tetelestai on bills to indicate “Paid in full,” it won’t change the fact that Jesus needed to die and rise spiritually.  If He did not rise spiritually from the dead, we would not have been able to do so, either, as we’ll see.

If we assume (safely) that Jesus said, “It is finished” meaning that “It is completed,” the “it” cannot be the entire plan of redemption.  Rather, it would have to refer only to His earthly assignment.  This can be proved by demonstrating that other verses prove that the plan of salvation was not finished when Jesus said it before He died.  Jesus had to die as part of the penalty for our sins because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

Romans 5:8:
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

1 Corinthians 15:3:
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

Romans 5:10:
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Hebrews 2:14:
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

So according to Paul, simply shedding His blood for our sins was not enough – Christ had to DIE for our sins, which quite obviously happened AFTER He spoke the words “It is finished.”

But 11 and 14 verses after 1 Corinthians 15:3 above, Paul makes it clear that even Christ dying for our sins was not enough to bring us out of our sins:

1 Corinthians 15:14:
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

1 Corinthians 15:17:
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

Therefore, without the resurrection, you would still be stuck with a sinful nature.  So the plan of redemption was NOT finished on the cross or even when Jesus died.  If Jesus could not be born again, no one else could be either, and we would be stuck in our sins.

Interestingly, Paul’s plan of salvation in Romans 10:9-10 doesn’t make belief that Jesus died on a cross a prerequisite for salvation, but it DOES require that the person believe that God raised Him from the dead.  After all, you can’t call on a dead man to save you!

Peter also makes a similar statement showing that Christ’s RESURRECTION was necessary for us to be resurrected spiritually (born again):

1 Peter 1:3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

It was His resurrection that opened the door to us being born again, not simply His bloodshed.  I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where Jesus’ bloodshed directly allowed us to be born again, though many other benefits of His bloodshed are cited.  At the cross, your sins were forgiven, but that would still leave you as nothing more than a forgiven sinner if it weren’t for Christ’s resurrection!  We should stop clinging to the old rugged cross and started embracing the full implication of the empty tomb!  It was His resurrection that allowed us to be born again!

God, a Fallen Nature, and Being Born Again

The biggest concern an objector typically has is the idea that Christ, being God, could temporarily have a fallen nature.  How could a holy God have an unholy nature?  Wouldn’t that make Him something other than what He really is?  But I think that line of reasoning would also prohibit Christ from being considered guilty for our sins and justly punished for them.  How could a holy God be guilty for sins and be punished for them?  How could God punish Himself?  I think that this gets us to the same place either way.  (Some theologians don’t believe that Christ was punished for our sins, but that He only shed His blood to redeem us, a position that is totally inconsistent with the forceful assertions in Isaiah 53.) 

Why would Jesus have to go to hell?  Wasn’t He as spotless as before once He shed His blood and cried out, “It is finished?”  Actually, He couldn’t have been.  You see, Adam and Eve would have lived forever if they had not sinned.  It would have been impossible for them to die physically because physical death only entered the earth after sin came in (Genesis 3:19).  If Christ, known as the Last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), were now in the same position as the First Adam before he fell, he could not have died either!  Thus, He would never have known “the death of the cross” after all.  He could have called on twelve legions of angels to take Him off the cross and continue on the earth as a Man incapable of death.  Our sins still had to be “on” Him for Him to be capable of dying on the cross.

So the question becomes whether Jesus was still in an unrighteous state before God at the moment He died physically.  Based on the statements above, it would seem obvious that if He were righteous, He could not have died physically, but there is a subtlety here.  We are now in a righteous state before God, but we will die physically anyway.  Once sin infiltrates our bodies, our bodies continue to be subject to death even after our spirits are born again.

Romans 8:10:
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

So based on this, we can’t prove that Jesus was not “right with God” when He died physically (though I believe other Scriptures prove this), but we can state that Jesus had to die spiritually before He could die physically.

Imputation vs. Transformation

“Jesus didn’t die spiritually” theologians assert that Jesus was not really made sin, despite what 2 Corinthians 5:21 says explicitly (they consider it a metaphor), and that the verse means that sin was only imputed to Jesus.  Thus, according to them, sin never really touched Him spiritually; He was only punished for our sins.

The problem is compounded when they make the obvious next assertion – that we are not really righteous by nature after we get saved but only have righteousness imputed to us.  The following verses seem to back that up:

Romans 4:11:
And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:

Romans 4:22-24:
And therefore it was imputed to him [Abraham] for righteousness.
Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

Given that we all sin, the concept of imputed righteousness is important.  We don’t lose our right standing with God when we sin because righteousness has been imputed to us.  We are still considered righteous even when our actions are unrighteous.  Our born-again spirits never side with sin, but our unrenewed minds and unspiritual flesh can do so.  When that happens, we still have righteousness imputed to us and we still have uninterrupted access to God and His new covenant blessings.

However, we are not simply sinners with imputed righteousness – our born-again spirits are righteous.  Your spirit does not have righteousness imputed to it – you were spiritually BORN righteous when you got saved!

Ephesians 4:24:
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

2 Peter 1:4:
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

1 Corinthians 6:17:
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

God has no unrighteousness, so given that your born-again spirit is “one spirit” with Him, your born-again spirit does not have any unrighteousness either!  The divine nature of which you are a partaker has no unrighteousness.

You have not just had righteousness imputed to you.  You have been transformed into someone who IS righteous by nature.  You have been spiritually raised from the dead!

Colossians 1:13:
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened [made alive] together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

Ephesians 2:1:
And you hath he quickened [made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Now since righteousness describes what you really are in 2 Corinthians 5:21, we should also conclude based on that same verse that sin was who Jesus really was when He died for us

I would say that we HAVE to admit that Jesus didn’t just carry our sins.  He “became sin” because 2 Corinthians 5:21 says so.  Since we don’t want to build a castle on an isolated Scripture, we should back that up elsewhere.

According to Isaiah 53:10, Jesus’ soul (not just His body) was made an offering for sin.  (Actually, the Hebrews words for “sin offering” and “sin” are identical, so it would not violate the Hebrew to say that His soul was made sin, though no translation I’m aware of translates it that way.  This would be consistent with 2 Corinthians 5:21.)

An even clearer Scriptural backup is this verse:

Galatians 3:13:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

This verse does NOT say merely that Jesus was cursed for us or BORE a curse for us, but that He became a curse for us.  (Before people throw any eggs, let me point out that I didn’t come up with the idea that Jesus WAS a curse – I’m just quoting God on the matter!)  I know it’s a stretch for people to accept that any member of the Trinity could become a curse, but God is the one doing the stretching here.

Contrary to the critics’ view, neither Paul nor I am claiming that Jesus ceased to be part of the Trinity when this happened, making neither of us a Trinity-denying heretic.  Jesus was identified with our sins and was punished accordingly (which most people accept), but that did not cause Him to stop being part of the Trinity.  One could extend the critics’ argument to say that Jesus could not have taken on sin without ceasing to be part of the Trinity, but that would turn the tables and turn the critic into the Trinity-denier!

So any theology of “what happened between the cross and the throne” must take into account Jesus BECOMING sin and the fact that God forsook Him.  I can hear the howls, “How can God forsake Himself?”  But that is what Jesus cried out.  He had to endure separation from God as a Man to partake of the spiritual death that we as sinners partook of.  His separation from God redeemed YOU from ever being separated from God.  If Jesus became sin and He was not sin when He rose from the dead, there HAD to be a point at which Jesus un-became sin.  This leads us to the next point.

A Born-Again Jesus

This idea of Jesus “dying spiritually” and carrying a fallen nature to hell definitely gets people stirred up.  WHAT?  Jesus, a fallen Man?  If that were true, He would have to be born again Himself!  Yet that is exactly what Paul taught:

Acts 13:33:
God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

“This day” is clearly the day when God raised up Jesus and NOT the day when He was conceived in Mary’s womb or the day when He was born in Bethlehem.  Jesus was not, and could not have been, “raised up” until He first died!  So God “begat” Jesus on THAT day.  Jesus was “born” (again) when God raised Him.

Far from being some farfetched stretch of the Scriptures, the idea that Jesus was born again is found in multiple places in Scripture!  Once you start looking at certain other Scriptures, you’ll wonder how you could have read your Bible all these years and missed something that was staring you in the face.

Acts 26:23:
That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

Colossians 1:18:
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

While I’ve read arguments that Colossians 1:18 above means that He is the chief of all others as opposed to being literally the “first” one “born” form the dead (because the “firstborn” was the head of others), you can’t make that argument with Acts 26:23 above!  In Acts 26:23, He is not called the firstborn; it is clearly stated that He was the first that should rise from the dead.

Luke (the author of Acts) and Paul (the author of Colossians) agree that Jesus was “the firstborn from the dead.”  A casual reading would leave you with the impression that Jesus was the first person whom God raised from the dead, and that we would follow at some point.  But Jesus was NOT the first person to be physically raised from the dead!  Jesus raised the son of a widow from the dead (Luke 7:12-16), raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44) and raised a 12-year-old girl from the dead (Matthew 9:18-25, Mark 5:22-43, Luke 8:41-56) – all before He Himself rose from the dead.  A man whose body was thrown on top of Elisha’s bones was raised from the dead (2 Kings 13:20-21).  An unspecified number of Old Testament women received their dead raised back to life (Hebrews 11:35).  Elijah and Elisha both raised someone from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24, 2 Kings 4:18-37).  Jesus was NOT the first person to be raised from the dead if all you consider is physical death.  However, in the context of spiritual death, it makes sense.  No one was spiritually born again before Jesus rose from the dead.  He COULD be the firstborn from spiritual death.

It gets a lot more obvious.

Colossians 2:12-13:
Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

The Bible is clear that we are raised together with Christ.  Here is more proof of that:

Colossians 3:1:
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Now let me ask you something.  Do you have a glorified body like the one Christ has had since He rose from the dead?  Can you just “be” somewhere without walking through the door to get there?  Is your body now immortal as Christ’s is?  Of course not; Paul says not to let sin reign in your mortal body (Romans 6:12).  Therefore, you are not physically risen with Christ.  You haven’t physically risen from the dead, have you?  (At least most of you can answer, “No!”)  However, you are spiritually risen.  You are born again.

The Only Way Being “Raised with Christ” Makes Sense

So these verses make no logical sense unless you believe that Jesus died spiritually and was reborn spiritually.  Otherwise, your conclusion is that Jesus died and rose physically but He never died and rose spiritually, while you died and rose spiritually but you never died and rose physically.  So how then could you be raised with Christ?  Your “raisings” would have nothing in common!

Next consider this verse:

Ephesians 2:5:
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

If there was never a point where Jesus was spiritually dead and then “made alive,” the verse above would make no sense, as our bodies have not partaken yet of the same resurrection to immortality that awaits us in the future.  Besides, the context of the verse is quite obvious – it speaks of being dead in sins (spiritually dead) and then being made alive.  To do that WITH CHRIST, it must be something that already happened to Christ.

Also consider this verse:

Romans 6:4:
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

We are to walk in the same newness of life – in this present life – as Jesus had when He was raised from the dead.  But we do NOT have the same resurrected, immortal body that can never know death that Jesus had when He rose from the dead.  We cannot yet walk in that kind of physical newness of life.  The only “newness of life” we can experience in this life is SPIRITUAL, as our body is “dead” and unspiritual and will remain that way until we die or are changed in the twinkling of an eye when Jesus returns.  So EVEN SO, we should walk in newness of spiritual life.  Paul is saying that this is what happened to Jesus.

Justified in the Spirit

Now consider that Jesus was “justified in the Spirit:”

1 Timothy 3:16:
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Justified refers to an unrighteous person being made righteous.  No serious Bible scholar would dispute that WE are justified.  Here are SOME verses (there are many more) on this topic:

Romans 3:24:
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Romans 5:1:
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Romans 5:9:
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

1 Corinthians 6:11:
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

In all the cases above the Greek word dikaioo is the word translated justified.  So you who were formally unrighteous have been justified, and now you are righteous.  There should be little debate about what the word dikaioo means.  It’s exactly the same word translated justified in 1 Timothy 3:16.  Therefore, it must indicate that Jesus was accounted unrighteous (after He became sin) but then a work of the Holy Spirit made Him righteous.  When did YOU become righteous?  When you were born again.  When did JESUS become righteous again?  When He was born again.

I realize that applying the term “born again” to Jesus goes against a lot of tradition.  But my challenge to you would be to explain how JESUS could be justified any other way.  He was made sin, but when He rose from the grave, He was no longer sin.  Something HAD to have happened between the cross and the empty tomb that caused Jesus to go back from “sin” to “righteousness” so that He was not still sin or “a curse” when His body was raised from the dead.  (Even if you think that “becoming sin” was a metaphor, it certainly was no metaphor when Isaiah said that He bore our sins (Isaiah 53:11), so there had to be a point at which He was no longer bearing our sins.  This is the “born again” moment we’re talking about.)

I know people will think, “It’s impossible for GOD to be “sin” and be “born again” because He’s holy!  Yet the Bible is clear that Jesus was not legally holy when He died on the cross – He was sin because He had taken on our sins.  You could just as well say that it is logically impossible for God to forsake Himself because He’s one God.  Yet that is clearly what happened on the cross when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).  He was punished with a sinful man’s punishment, and therefore He had to be separated from God the Father for a time.  You could also say that it is logically impossible for a holy, righteous God to be cursed and even become a curse, but that is exactly what Jesus became on the cross, as Galatians 3:13 states very plainly.  If He, though He was God, could be punished and become a curse, I don’t see how being spiritually dead is farfetched either.  How could Jesus have been spiritually alive and be “a curse” simultaneously?  That seems difficult.

Now consider this:

1 Corinthians 15:21:
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

Jesus had to become a resurrected Man.  (It is generally overlooked that He still is a Man today, according to 1 Timothy 2:5), though He can also indwell believers and He isn’t limited by human limitations anymore.)  His becoming a resurrected Man was essential for us to become resurrected men as well.

Objectors along this line usually accuse anyone who believes that Jesus had to be born again of heresy.  “You’re denying the second member of the Trinity by saying that Jesus wasn’t God after He died and before He rose!”  But I am doing no such thing.  I do not believe that Jesus EVER ceased to be God at any time.  However, I believe that though He was God, He was capable taking all our sins upon Himself, of becoming sin for us and suffering judgment accordingly as our Substitute.

A Little Lower Than the Angels

Hebrews 2:9:
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

There has been plenty of confusion about this quotation of Psalm 8:4-5 and its King James rendering: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”  That is because the word angels here is actually elohim in the Hebrew, which is also used of God Himself!  Thus, one could claim (and many do) that the true intent of that Psalm must be that man was created a little lower than God.  However, this misses the fact that the word elohim can also mean a ruler or powerful person or even a false god.  Its use is definitely NOT limited to referring to God Himself.  (This is discussed at more length in the objection reply about faith preachers claiming to be little gods.)  Thus, one cannot accuse the writer of Hebrews of mistranslation when he uses the word “angels” – which was the traditional Jewish reading of the Psalm as well as the King James translation of it.

Adam and Eve, before they fell, were never underneath any angel.  They were lower than God, but they did not report to any angel.  However, after they fell, they were now underneath Satan’s control, and of course Satan is a fallen angel.  So sinful man is below the angels, but righteous man is above the angels.  Knowing this is necessary to see what Hebrews 2:9 above really means.  Jesus was not made a little lower than the angels in Bethlehem when He was born.  The verse says explicitly that He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.  In other words, when He suffered for our sins, He was put on the level of man after man sinned, not before man sinned.  He shared the status of spiritually dead men.

A born-again (spiritually alive) man is NOT a little lower than the angels – he is HIGHER, and here is more proof:

1 Corinthians 6:3:
Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

The one judging must outrank the one being judged.  Thus, we believers (spiritually alive men) outrank angels!  We must be “above the angels,” not “a little below the angels.”

Hebrews 1:13-14:
But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Believers are not called to serve angels.  Angels are called to serve believers!  Thus, we outrank angels; we are NOT “a little below them” in rank!

God gave the earth to MEN, not to angels.  It is nowhere stated that ANGELS were made in God’s image, but MAN was.  Thus, you should see by now that a spiritually alive man is a higher class of being than an angel.

Lest anyone misunderstand Luke 20:36, being “equal to the angels” referred to being like the angels in terms of immortality, not in terms of spiritual rank.  This is explicit because Jesus said “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels.”

Now if Jesus were spiritually alive His whole life until He breathed His last, He would have outranked angels the same way that we do at all times.  At no point could He ever have been considered to have been lower than the angels.  He was only lower than the angels “for the suffering of death” when He became sin for us.  Jesus was not just “made lower than the angels – period.”  He was “made lower than the angels for the suffering of death.”  Do you see that?  The Old Testament people, even the best of them, were still lower than the angels because of the spiritual death that had passed from Adam to all of them.  But Jesus, living a perfect life and thus never dying spiritually until His punishment for our sins, was never in the position of those Old Testament people until He took on their position when He was punished.  The only person who can be lower than the angels is a man without right standing with God!  Jesus temporarily lost that right standing when He took on our wrong standing.  He exchanged His righteousness for our unrighteousness.  We received His righteousness as a gift (Romans 5:17).

He Tasted Death for Every Man

That same verse (Hebrews 2:9) goes on to say that He tasted death for every man.  In other words, He endured death as our substitute to spare us from death.  Unless you believe the ridiculous doctrine that we can live forever in our current bodies (as a few people teach, and other now-deceased people have taught!), you cannot take the position that Jesus endured physical death to spare us from physical death.  Even under the New Covenant, it is still appointed for a man once to die and after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).  Romans 6:12 says that our current bodies are mortal (subject to death).  So Jesus did NOT taste physical death so that we would not have to taste physical death, because we still WILL experience physical death unless Jesus returns while we are still alive.  The only remaining logical conclusion is that Jesus tasted spiritual death to spare us ever having to taste spiritual death.

John 8:51:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

Here we see that “death” can refer to spiritual death, as Jesus clearly could not mean that keeping His sayings would keep you from physical death, which would contradict Hebrews 9:27 above.

Did the Devil Torment Jesus in Hell for Our Sins?

Some teaching builds upon the idea that Jesus went to hell by painting a picture of Satan and his cohorts mercilessly tormenting Jesus in hell for our sins.  I can’t go along with that.  First, the devil is not IN hell to begin with and never has been!  Why would he be there when it’s a place of punishment created for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41)?  If you had the right to be free to roam the earth for now, would you willingly enter a place of torture designed to make you miserable?  Of course not, and neither would Satan.  I can think of a video made for kids where Satan sits on a throne in hell and is revered as “Big D” by his imps, but Satan’s throne is not in hell.  Consider the following verse, which indicates that Satan had set up shop on the earth, NOT hell:

Revelation 2:13:
I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

The word seat in the King James Version is the Greek word thronos, which (as you can probably guess) means throne.  So Satan’s throne isn’t in hell!  He doesn’t hang around hell, either.  For further proof of that, consider these verses:

Job 1:7:
And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Job 2:2:
And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Satan didn’t answer, “I came from HELL!”  So Satan is not in hell.  And if Satan were in hell, his orders to his demons would fall upon deaf ears, because they aren’t in hell either!  They’re in the heavens above the earth looking for people to yield to them.

Ephesians 2:2:
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Ephesians 6:12:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

The devil doesn’t have friends in low places – they’re in “high places” above the earth – a term that would never be used to describe hell, which is always described as being under the earth.

So the idea that Satan and his demons tormented Jesus in hell doesn’t make sense.

You may wonder, what about what Jude said about fallen angels being in everlasting chains, then?

Jude 6:
And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;

The Bible does not contradict itself.  Satan and his “principalities and powers and rulers of wickedness in the heavenly places” are not in everlasting chains at this time.  So not all angels are chained in hell right now.  Apparently, some are, in a place call ed Tartarus.  But these are the ones who “left their own abode.”  This whole matter is discussed more elsewhere.

So back to the question of whether Satan tormented Jesus in hell.  It seems clear to me that God created hell to be a place of torment, and it was never Satan’s role to torment people in hell, nor will it ever be.  The same goes for the fallen angels.  I believe that Jesus WAS tormented in hell because it was designed by God to be a place of torment.  It just wasn’t Satan doing the tormenting.

My conclusion that Jesus had to be tormented is bolstered by this verse:

Acts 2:24:
Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

When Jesus was raised to life spiritually (which preceded His physical resurrection), hell could not hold him anymore because it had no legal claims on him.  (As people “in Christ,” hell has no legal claims on us, either!)  Notice that God loosed “the pains of death.”  That Greek word is used to describe labor pains in the following verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:3:
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

This clearly indicates an intensely painful, unpleasant experience.  Thus, Jesus’ time between the cross and the resurrection was not some wonderful time of intimacy where Jesus had a picnic with the Father.  It involved death and pain, indicating that He was being tormented.

Thus, Jesus could not have spent three days and three nights in Abraham’s Bosom, where people were comforted, not tormented.  No one in Abraham’s Bosom was in agonizing pain!

Luke 16:25:
But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

It is inconsistent to think that Jesus was “right with God” during those three days and three nights and yet was still subject to pain and torment during that time.

Quickened by the Spirit

If you read only 1 Peter 3:18 above, you’ll conclude that it means that Jesus’ body was put to death and that the Holy Spirit raised it.  While that is true, that can’t be what verse 18 is talking about.  Verse 19 continues “by whom he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”  I needed to lay the foundation in the foregoing section to show that this event happened BEFORE Jesus’ body was raised up by the Holy Spirit.  His being quickened by the Spirit was BEFORE He preached to the spirits in prison, which was BEFORE He rose bodily from the dead.  So “quickened by the Spirit” CANNOT MEAN “bodily raised from the dead.”  The only remaining explanation is that it speaks of being raised from SPIRITUAL death.

As mentioned elsewhere, some think that Peter meant that Jesus preached through Noah to people who were about to die in the flood, but Peter ties the event to Jesus being “put to death in the flesh” and “quickened by the Spirit,” neither of which took place back in Genesis!  Another try is to assert that Jesus did not preach by the Spirit to the fallen angels until AFTER He rose from the dead, but that runs afoul of what the writer of Hebrews said about Jesus entering ONCE into the Holy Place (Hebrews 9:12).  There is no record of more than one ascension, which would be the case if Jesus went to the Holy Place, then took a day trip to Tartarus and then returned to the Holy Place.

Nothing New Under the Sun

The idea of Jesus BECOMING sin because He took our sins bothers many people, some of whom are very vocal about their disagreement.  They are probably aghast at a particular famous writer’s statement that Jesus had to become “the greatest transgressor, murderer, thief, rebel, and blasphemer that ever was or could be in the world.”  Was this writer a modern “Word of Faith cultist” who stretched things farther than ever?  No.  Whether you agree with him or not, the writer was Martin Luther, who was a Lutheran (obviously), not a modern Word of Faith preacher.  So the idea of Jesus dying as a sinner is not something that was never thought of until recently.

By the Spirit or by the Blood?

As a quick side note, you may wonder what to do with the verse that says that God raised Jesus by the blood of the everlasting covenant.  Did He raise Jesus by the Spirit or by the blood?  Is this a contradiction?

Hebrews 13:20:
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,

I don’t see a problem.  I believe the writer of Hebrews is simply making the powerful point that when Jesus shed His blood, He ratified the New Covenant.  In other words, the New Covenant was not ratified when Jesus rose from the dead, but when He shed His blood before He died.  By ratifying the New Covenant in advance of His death, He guaranteed His resurrection that was essential for the New Covenant so that we could be born again!

But He Knew No Sin

A common anti-Jesus-died-spiritually argument is that the Bible says that Jesus knew no sin and thus could not have taken on sin in His spirit.  Yes, the Bible affirms that He knew no sin, but that’s in a verse where His spiritual death is also discussed!

2 Corinthians 5:21:
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

So it is not a contradiction to say that Jesus knew no sin and that He was MADE sin.  Jesus knew no sin during His lifetime until He took on our sins, and that is the point Paul made.  When He took on our sins, He DID know sin at that point, though the sin was not His own but rather ours.

But He Was a Spotless Lamb

Another common argument along the same line is that Jesus was a spotless Lamb and therefore could not have had the “spot” of sin on Himself.  But He did when He paid for our sins.  When the Passover Lamb was sacrificed, it was bloody, not spotless, when the sacrifice was done, to say nothing of dead.  He was originally spotless Himself, but He was not reckoned as spotless by God on the cross – if that had been the case, God could not have punished Him for anything!

Jesus’ Triumph over Principalities and Powers

Colossians 2:15 makes it clear that Jesus triumphed over all evil powers.  When did He do this?  It’s evident upon study that He did it on the cross.  My detailed proof of this is found in another article.

While there is a certain appeal to picturing Jesus bashing demons in hell over the head on His way out, or maybe having a Roman victory parade with tied-up, humiliated demons behind Him, we’ve already established that the principalities “of the air” as well as their head, Satan, did not (and do not) inhabit hell.  Satan did not “drag Jesus into hell.”  Colossians 2:15 makes it clear that the cross, not a visit to hell, was where the victory over principalities was won.  How can this be, especially when I’ve asserted already that the cross did not complete the plan of redemption?

Our right to be born again – “risen with Christ” – did not occur until Jesus rose from the dead.  However, it was on the CROSS that our sins were forgiven when God punished Jesus for them. At that point, they had already been “taken” from us.  This taking of our sins is the very act that rendered Satan powerless over us.  Suddenly, the entire universe could realize that Satan and his cohorts had no more legal grounds to condemn a man.  Because his only leverage came from pointing out sins and nitpicking based on the Law, what Jesus did on the cross was a giant GAME OVER sign for Satan.

Before the cross, Satan, “The Accuser of the Brethren” (Revelation 12:10), could bring charges against us that could stick.  We all broke the Law in some fashion, so he could point out our shortcomings.  Even when our sins were covered (as opposed to washed away) by Old Testament blood sacrifices, a sinner would have new sins that hadn’t yet been covered.  The strength of sin is the Law (1 Corinthians 15:56).  Before Jesus nailed the Law to the cross (Colossians 2:14), it had unmet demands that hung over our heads.  But after Jesus took our sins and bled on the cross, Satan had no basis for accusations.  We are counted righteous by our faith in Jesus, which means that Satan has NO means by which to rightfully inflict condemnation on a Christian (Romans 8:1).  There’s nothing for him to grab onto.  He might as well try to grip oil.  He has no legal right to afflict us.  Your name has been cleared.  You do not DESERVE punishment anymore.  Your sins deserved it, but Jesus served your sentence for you.  Therefore, EVERY sickness Satan brings is ILLEGAL and subject to eviction in the name of Jesus.  

That is why the cross was a triumph over Satan’s kingdom.  His only form of leverage over humanity was legally abolished forever.  He and his fallen cohorts were brought to nothing.

The whole matter of when Jesus defeated Satan is discussed in even more detail in another article.

“Key” Points

The Bible nowhere states that Jesus snatched the keys of hell and death from the devil before He left hell, nor does it state that Jesus and Satan had the greatest battle of all eternity in hell and that He beat Satan there.  In fact, the Bible says the opposite – that He triumphed on the CROSS (see above as well as the other article.)  Because Satan and his principalities were already defeated at that point, there was no need to defeat any of them again in some kind of cage fight in hell. 

I don’t see anywhere in the Bible that Satan ever inhabited hell.  So he couldn’t have been there so that Jesus could take the keys of hell away from him on His way out.  Hell was designed to be a place of torture for the devil.  If the devil were in hell and he had the keys, he would could have freed his fallen followers from their fetters and spared them some agony until later.  Hell is NOT a place where the devil and his angels torment people; it is a place where the devil and his angels themselves will be tormented (Matthew 25:41) along with any people who failed to submit themselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ.  So popular images of Satan bullying residents of hell saying, “Now I gotcha, sucker, ha-ha-ha-ha!” accompanied by a chorus of gloating demons with a “Gnashville” sound are unbiblical.  I’m aware of Revelation 1:18 but in that verse Jesus simply states that He HAS the keys of hell and death.  It is never stated that Jesus has the keys because He took them from Satan in hell.  I think it makes more sense that God the Father gave Him those keys after He ascended to heaven and that God had the keys all along until then.  After all, it was up to GOD, not SATAN, who would be sent to the place of torment or to “Abraham’s bosom” – Satan has never had any rights in that matter, so he certainly has never had a key to let only selected people into hell.  Also consider that Jesus has the key of David (Revelation 3:7) and there is no indication that He took that key from Satan either.  Having a key doesn’t prove that you took it from Satan.

That matter is also discussed more in another article.

Some have even argued that “hell” will not exist until after the Great White Throne Judgment of all mankind, but this can’t be true.  They might be confusing hell with the lake of fire.  After the Great White Throne Judgment, hell (which obviously exists at the time) will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).  Now someone is sure to point out that the word for “hell” is hades and claim that it means the abode of the dead but not a place of punishment, but that is disproven by Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus where the rich man was in TORMENT in the FLAME in hades (translated as hell; see Luke 16:23-24).  Hades is the same place where Jesus was between the cross and the empty tomb – God “did not leave His soul there” (Acts 2:27, quoting Psalm 16:10).  If you weren’t judged with the wicked, you went to “Abraham’s Bosom” as Lazarus did, not to hades.  While some argue that Abraham’s Bosom was part of hades at that time, the Bible does not state that.  Lazarus went to Abraham’s Bosom while the rich man was in torment in the flame in hades.  The fact that you could see one place from the other does not prove that they were the same place; if anything, that proves that they were two distinct places.

The Parade That Wasn’t

What about that great parade of captive demons?  No translation that I’ve ever seen uses the word “parade” to describe what Jesus did, though I’ve heard the explanation that  Colossians 2:15 expresses the same kind of military triumph in which the Roman army dragged the losers down the street in a humiliation parade, and that one of the words used is based on such an event.  There is no question that Jesus humiliated the devil and his followers, putting them to public shame by His victory on the cross.  The devil had been trying to take Jesus out for a long time.  He inspired armies to exterminate the Jews.  He inspired Haman to make a plot to kill all Jews, which would have ended any chance for Jesus to come.  He tried to get all little boys in Bethlehem killed so that he could kill Jesus.  He tried to tempt Jesus to sin, knowing that sin would ruin Him and make Him his slave along with the rest of mankind.  He tried to inspire people to kill Jesus before He could finish His course.  Nothing worked.  Jesus’ crucifixion was proof that Satan and all his demons had failed to get any hold on Him.  They lost; He won.

However, given that His triumph was on the cross, it makes it hard to picture Him leading an actual parade while He was still under condemnation for our sins and still nailed to the cross.  Some teachers assume that this “parade” was on Jesus’ way out of hell after taking the devil’s keys of death and hell, but there is no possible way to interpret Colossians 2:15 as talking about what Jesus did in hell or on His way out of hell.  The timing is off.  There was no parade of defeated demons on Jesus’ way out of hell.

Unfortunately, we can’t compare the exact Greek word for “made a shew of them” to anywhere else in the Bible, because Colossians 2:15 is the only place where it is used.  However, a similar word (paradeigmatizo instead of deigmatizo) is used in Matthew 1:19 where Joseph did not want to make Mary “a public example.”  So the idea is that what Jesus on the cross resulted in Satan’s public humiliation.

I’m aware that Ephesians 4:8 says, “Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.”  However, note that this verse says that He led captivity (that which captivators impose) captive, not the captivators themselves.  If Jesus had led a parade of captivators who had imposed their captivity on humanity when He ascended on high, at what point do you suppose that He let them go free again to still captivate sinners who are still in their kingdom?  They aren’t bound up now; they are free to roam the earth.  Satan himself is allowed go to and fro, seeking whom he may devour – he won’t be “bound” until Christ’s 1000-year reign.  So why should we conclude that Jesus bound up all the bad spirits in a victory parade and then let them go back and do the kinds of things that they were doing before?  I don’t see where Satan and his cohorts do anything differently now than they ever did; the only difference is that a child of God has the authority to stop their harassment, which not even the greatest prophet in the Old Testament had the authority to do.

However, Christ’s taking of the Law’s punishment for our sins DID publicly humiliate Satan and his colleagues because Satan’s ability to accuse us under the Law was suddenly gone, leaving him powerless against us.

Jesus won a victory for all of us in the future who would believe.  When we receive Jesus, we receive His victory over all antichrist spirits (1 John 4:4).  We aren’t going to overcome them – we HAVE overcome them by virtue of being in Christ.

None of this is a big deal that will hinder your healing no matter which way you believe on these issues.  I’m quite aware that I’m contradicting popular preachers on this matter, but I reached a differnet conclusion from what they teach when I studied the Bible for myself.  If I’m going to believe something, I demand Bible proof!  If you can find anywhere in the Bible (as opposed to popular music or books or videos based on some alleged revelation or vision) that Jesus snatched the keys of hell and death from Satan after beating him in an epic spiritual boxing match in hell, and that He then led a Roman-style humiliation parade of demons on His way out, go ahead and preach it.  If you can’t find this explicitly in the Bible, beware lest you propagate Christian “urban legends” and end up embarrassed when someone asks for chapters and verses to back up what you’re preaching!

The Dual Imagery Dilemma

People who claim that Jesus did NOT die spiritually seem to ignore the serpent on the pole being an image of Jesus on the cross.  However, people who claim that Jesus DID die spiritually seem to ignore that Jesus was not only pictured as a serpent on a pole but also as a Lamb without blemish.  Though He was a Lamb without blemish, He could not have literally “become sin” and died spiritually and maintained His unblemished state.  Spiritual death would certainly have blemished Him!  The dilemma is that Jesus was foreshadowed BOTH as a serpent on a pole AND as a spotless lamb whose innocent blood would be shed.

One complication is that Jesus was not portrayed as a lamb with a snake on it.  He WAS the snake in Moses’ snake-on-the-pole symbol, and He likened Himself to it.

John 3:14:
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

He looked like sin, not righteousness, because He had our sins on Him.

But we still have to find a way to stay consistent with the fact that He shed His blood while spotless:

Hebrews 9:14:
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

This doesn’t seem too hard to handle if we consider that Jesus WAS indeed spotless when He offered Himself for our sins, but accepting our sins made Him no longer spotless, as He was “spotted” with our sins at that point.

But further complicating the matter is the fact that if Jesus were spiritually dead when He shed His blood, His blood would have been just as tainted with sin as Adam’s blood was after he fell!  If Jesus shed the blood of a spiritually dead person, his blood was no better than that of the thieves next to him!  Or, if only sinless blood could do the job, NO ONE could have done the job that day.  This “paradox” has led many people to conclude that Jesus could NOT have died spiritually.  But then, the raft of other Scriptures above would be contradicted if Jesus did NOT die spiritually.  Yet the Bible can’t contradict itself.  Suddenly this “slam dunk” argument about Jesus dying spiritually seems like a real mess, doesn’t it?

Peter also indicated that Jesus’ precious blood had to be pure from sin:

1 Peter 1:18-19:
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Indeed, if Jesus’ blood were tainted, what good would it do an already-tainted sinner to be “washed” in that tainted blood?  For it to mean anything to be washed in His blood, His blood could not have been tainted with sin.  You would not want to be “washed” in tainted blood that needed washing itself!  Old Testament sin offerings were supposed to be spotless.  The only way Jesus could have fulfilled the Old Testament image of a sin offering would be if He were spotless when He shed His blood.

Have we found an unsolvable “Bible contradiction?”  Do we have to re-examine the idea that Jesus was spiritually dead on the cross?  Actually, we DO need to re-examine that idea in light of the passage above.

As we already saw, Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).  Those were His last recorded actually words in Matthew’s gospel; the only thing He “said” after that was that He “cried out again with a loud voice” and immediately died (Matthew 27:50).  Matthew doesn’t record the words or even indicate that He used any actual words; we know only that He cried out with a loud voice.  In Mark’s gospel, we read basically the same thing (Mark 15:37).  However, when we read Luke’s account (Luke 23:46), we see that Jesus did say something else after crying out with a loud voice, so it would make sense that this could be what He said in Matthew and Mark’s accounts.  He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”

This is why I won’t use the fact that Jesus broke with the name Father that He had used all His life to describe God to prove that He was spiritually dead.  He did call Him Father again before He died.  I believe He was spiritually dead at that point; I just don’t want to use a failed argument to prove it.

Some see this as Jesus going back to the Father immediately, but that would invalidate the entire “sign of Jonah” that Jesus preached about repeatedly.  I believe He meant at that point that He was spiritually dead and headed for hell, and He was trusting God to raise Him out of hell.

But wait a minute – if He shed innocent blood that could wash away all our sins, He couldn’t have been spiritually dead when He did it!

I believe that the key to resolving this apparent paradox is to consider when it was that Jesus cried out to God about having forsaken Him.  He did it just before He died!  Thus, I believe that the point at which God forsook Him and He died spiritually, being cut off from direct communion with His Father, was just before He died.

After all, if Jesus had died spiritually when He began His atonement at the whipping post, it would have made sense for Him to cry out THEN, “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken Me?”  But He didn’t.  If He died spiritually at the moment that He was nailed to the cross, it would have made sense for Him to cry out THEN, “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken Me?”  But He didn’t.  He did not cry this out until just before He died physically.

Thus, it is apparent to me that He was still spiritually alive and pure when He hung on the cross shedding His blood for us and even back at the whipping post where He also shed His blood for us while being whipped.  Thus, He WAS shedding innocent blood for us that could cleanse sin – and as the only human to never sin, He was uniquely qualified to be the one to shed His sinless blood for sinners.

Our sins were laid UPON Him and He BORE them while on the cross, but He did not have to BECOME sin yet in order to do that.  In fact, He couldn’t “become sin” yet and still shed sinless blood.  He took our beating, our wounding, our sicknesses, our pains – the punishment for sin that we all deserved.  But He still had to be alive to God when He did it.  Otherwise, the other image of Him as a spotless Lamb would be invalid and only the serpent image would be valid.  But if Jesus stayed spiritually alive, the lamb image would be valid but the serpent image would be invalid.

We already proved that “It is finished” could not have referred to the entire plan of redemption.  It is important to see why that is, because so many people believe and preach that “It is finished” referred to the entire plan of redemption despite Scriptures to the contrary.  The price had been paid for our sins, but the entire plan of redemption was not yet finished.

If we froze time after Jesus announced, “It is finished,” the result would have been that mankind could have received forgiveness for all sins – past, present and future – but a believer in Jesus would still just be a sinner saved by grace (as many actually believe in error that we are).  No one would be born of the Spirit.  No one would have new life on the inside.  All that mankind would have would be forgiveness of sins.

Contrary to what some faith teachers teach, I don’t see that Jesus had to pay for our sins in hell.  It seems clear to me from Scripture that all our sins were paid for at the cross.  So I have no gripe with anyone who wants to claim that tetelestai really means “paid in full” although I can’t claim ironclad biblical support for that.  No Bible reference indicates that Jesus continued to “pay for” our sins in hell or that the place of Satan’s defeat was hell.  Sinners do not “pay for” their sins in hell; they are punished for their sins that will never be paid for.  Colossians 2:15 is clear that the place of victory over Satan was the cross, not hell.  Why is that?  Consider that all of Satan’s ammunition that he had in his storage shed (metaphorically speaking) had to do with accusing us of breaking the Law.  He could condemn us for our shortcomings.  Satan probably thought that killing Jesus would rid him of any opposition.  I can’t imagine how horrible he felt when Jesus was taking His last breath and suddenly Satan looked and saw that his entire ammunition shed had been blown to smithereens by what Jesus had just done.  No longer would he have the right to condemn a person for breaking the Law.  The Law had been nailed to the cross and its demands for justice were forever satisfied by Jesus’ blood.  Satan had no more valid accusations against anyone.  The strength of sin – the Law (1 Corinthians 15:56) – had been replaced by grace and truth (John 1:17).

I know that “It is finished” would seem to mean that there was no further work to do to inaugurate the New Covenant, but consider that Jesus said in John 17:4 that He had finished the work that God sent Him to do – and that was before He went to the cross.  So we have to be careful about claiming that “It is finished” meant that EVERYTHING to do with the New Covenant was finished.  John 17:4 proves that “finished” can refer to the assignment that He had up until then as opposed to meaning that the New Covenant was completely finished.  I think that “It is finished” can validly be taken to mean that the earthly part of His assignment had been completed, though not the entire plan of redemption, which required Him to die and rise from the dead.

But I have to go down a different road from faith teachers who state that the cross was insufficient for atonement for sin and that Jesus had to continue atoning for our sins for three days and nights in hell.  The Bible states that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22).  Jesus’ body was in a tomb at the time, so it was impossible for Jesus to shed any more blood in hell.  Thus, He was unable to accomplish any more “remission of sin” in hell.  But fortunately, He didn’t have to – His blood shed while on the earth was sufficient to atone for ALL sins.  So why did He have to be in hell if there was no longer “hell to pay” for our sins?  Because only spiritually alive people are allowed in heaven.  Jesus had not been raised from the dead spiritually yet, so He HAD to be with “the dead” in hell.

You can find additional thoughts along these lines in another article.

Why couldn’t he have just been in Abraham’s Bosom?  Because that was a place for righteous departed souls, not ones who had unremitted sin, let alone Someone who had BECOME sin for us.  We already saw from Acts 13:33 that Jesus was not “begotten” (born again) until the same day He was raised physically from the dead.  Notice that God didn’t say, “This day I have resurrected Thee;” He said, “This day have I begotten Thee.”

If His sinless shed blood on the cross was enough to pay for all our sins, why couldn’t Jesus just come home to heaven right away without dying spiritually and being raised to life spiritually?  And the answer is, He couldn’t have died physically!  He could have hung on that cross for the next 2,000 years and still never died if He never ceased to be spiritually alive.  The only reason Adam died physically is that he died spiritually first.  Physical death only came by sin (Genesis 3:19).  Thus, Jesus could only die physically if He died spiritually first!

If Jesus had never died spiritually and He had never been raised from the dead spiritually, we would never be able to know what it would be to be “raised with Him” (Colossians 3:1).  No one else could be born again until Jesus was born again.  Without His spiritual death and resurrection, we would only be forgiven sinners.  We would not “BE righteousness” and be able to do the works of Jesus.  I realize that many denominational people DO teach that we are merely forgiven sinners because they don’t realize the extent of what Jesus did for us.

Some of you may have made (or lost!) money trading financial markets, but the best TRADE of all time was when Jesus traded His spiritual LIFE for your spiritual DEATH.  He BECAME SIN so that we could BECOME the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).  For that trade to happen, Jesus had to experience spiritual death to identify with us and then be raised back to spiritual life to become the “firstborn of many brethren.”  Jesus was not the natural firstborn – Adam and a lot of other people were born on the earth before Jesus was born on the earth.  Nor was He the first person to be bodily raised from the dead – other people were raised from the dead physically in the Old Testament before Jesus came, and He raised people from the dead.  However, He was the first to prove that a man could be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life by the Holy Spirit.  Many more would follow, and they could call God their Father as much as Jesus did.  That is how He became “the firstborn of many brethren.”

That is why Jesus had to descend into hell after He died – hell is where the unrighteous had to go, as opposed to Abraham’s Bosom, where the Old Testament “righteous” went.  An unrighteous person would be out of place in Abraham’s Bosom just as a righteous person would be out of place in hell.  Jesus certainly didn’t “fit” in hell after He was “justified by the Spirit.”  But we’ve already looked at Scriptures that proved that He went there.

Did you know that when you partake of the Lord’s Supper, you aren’t just commemorating His body being broken for our healing and His blood being shed for our forgiveness?  You’re doing that, but you are also “commemorating the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).  And by the way, His blood wasn’t just shed for your forgiveness; it was also shed to ratify the New Covenant (1 Corinthians 11:23-25 and elsewhere – see Healing and the Lord’s Supper for other Scriptures about that matter.  Now you might have a fleeting thought, “If the New Covenant was finished by His bloodshed, why would He have to die?”  But we just saw that we had to commemorate the Lord’s death, not just His bloodshed.   He had to die before He could rise.  Scripture is clear that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, we are still in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Jesus made forgiveness available through His BLOOD that He shed on the cross, but Scripture doesn’t teach that His blood made the new birth available.  You could only say that it did indirectly, as it cleared the way for us to receive the rest of the plan of salvation.  It was only the fact that He “became sin” (He died spiritually) that allowed us to become “the righteousness of God in Him.”  Only by becoming like us could He allow us to trade positions so that we could become like Him.  Consider 2 Corinthians 5:21 carefully: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”  It was making Jesus to be sin for us that opened the door to the new birth so that we could be righteous new creations and follow Him from spiritual death to spiritual life.

Becoming Sin or Becoming an Offering for Sin?

Another “anti-Jesus-died-spiritually” argument is that Jesus did not literally BECOME sin but instead became a “sin offering.”  The objectors are quick to point out that in the Old Testament Hebrew, the word for “sin” was interchangeable with “sin offering.”  And the objectors are right about that.  The Hebrew word chatta’ah is translated both “sin” and “offering for sin.”  However, despite some objectors’ claims to the contrary, the Greek word for sin in the New Testament (hamartia) is not by itself translated “sin offering” anywhere.  Where we see “sin offering,” it is a “peri hamartia” and not simply a “hamartia.”  In other words, it is a “for sin” and not simply a “sin.”  We see “peri hamartia” (for sin) in Hebrews 10:6 and Hebrews 10:8.  (The words sacrifices and offering that precede for sin were added by the translators because they were implied but not explicitly stated in the Greek.)  2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that Jesus became sin (harmatia), not an offering for sin (peri harmatia).  Where a sacrifice for sin is mentioned, the explicit Greek word thysia can be used along with hamartia.  We see this in Hebrews 5:1, Hebrews 9:26 and Hebrews 10:26, but NOT in 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Despite this plain evidence, those who don’t believe that Jesus died spiritually contend that the Greek in 2 Corinthians 5:21 could mean that Jesus became a sin offering, not sin itself.  A transliteration of the Greek manuscript starts, “Who for no knew sin for us him sin he has made.”  The same word for sin (hamartia) appears both times for the word sin.  Since it’s unreasonable to think that Paul ascribed two different meanings to the same Greek word in one phrase, this must either say, “For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” or “For He has made Him to be a sin offering for us, who knew no sin offering.”  The “sin offering” version just doesn’t make any sense, so the first version must be the correct one.

So we have to accept that the Bible means what it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 – Jesus literally BECAME sin rather than becoming a mere sin offering or sacrifice for sin.  To do that, He MUST have died spiritually.  His spiritual death and resurrection made OUR spiritual resurrection from the dead available in the New Covenant.

Do you question that you have “become” righteousness, as that verse says?  If not, you have no right to question that Jesus “became” sin, as the verse also says.

Jesus’ Soul and Body Were Both Offerings

Isaiah 53:10 shows us that God made Jesus’ SOUL an offering for sin – not just His body.  We usually think only of His body as the offering, but that isn’t what God says.  (Now, if you take the point that people who object to this teaching are correct in saying – that in Hebrew, sin and sin offering are the same word, you could actually justify translating Isaiah 53:10 to say that God made Jesus’ soul sin!  This would agree with 2 Corinthians 5:21’s statement that He was MADE SIN.)

Our Inheritance

We could not receive an inheritance without the death of the testator (Hebrews 9:16).  Therefore, Jesus had to die physically.  In order for Him to die physically, He had to die spiritually.  Thus, in order for God to give us an inheritance in Christ, He had to die spiritually.

God’s Interaction with Jesus on the Cross

God was PUNISHING Jesus on the cross until just before He died, at which point Jesus could say that His earthly work was finished (or, if you prefer, that our sin debts were now “paid in full”) and He could say that God had forsaken Him at that point.  You cannot say that God “separated Himself” from Jesus while He was pouring out His wrath for our sins upon Him!  Let me give you a natural illustration.  A wife-beater punches his wife repeatedly and then leaves her for another woman.  He “separated himself” from her – she was forsaken.  But she was NOT forsaken while she was being beaten!  That would not make any sense.  Likewise, when Jesus was being punished for that wife-beater’s sins, God could not have forsaken Jesus yet because God was still punishing Jesus!  The devil isn’t the one who punished Jesus for our sins!  God’s interaction with Jesus was not friendly, but He was still interacting with Him – He had not distanced Himself so that He had no interaction with Jesus at that point.  That is perhaps the best evidence that Jesus’ spiritual death came after God was done smiting Him for our sins, just before He died.  It was only then that He cried out about God forsaking Him.

What About the Broken Veil?

I think it’s interesting that the temple veil that kept people separated from God was broken at the point when Jesus died, NOT at the point when He rose from the dead.

Matthew 27:51:
And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

Mark 15:38:
And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

However, we saw proof above that the entire plan of redemption was still not complete until Jesus rose.  So how could that veil have broken after Jesus died but had not yet risen from the dead?

I believe that the answer is that once our sins were PAID FOR, it eliminated the ability of sin to separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2).  Thus, the path to God’s presence was cleared.  However, that was not the ENTIRE plan of salvation.  Even one priest, once a year, could approach God in His Holy of Holies as long as his sins were atoned for.  But He could not have God live IN him.  At the point where the veil was torn, the approach to God was cleared, but the ability to be born again was not yet available.  That required Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Otherwise, we would simply be slaves of sin who would have to continue to commit pre-forgiven sins for the rest of our lives while at least having access to God.  Thank God, we are NOT slaves of sin.  Jesus’ death and resurrection took care of that!  We walk with Jesus in newness of life, free from spiritual death.  Although we can know physical death, we will NEVER know spiritual death when we are in Christ.  At physical death, we remain spiritually alive and just move to a better address without our spiritually and physically dead bodies.  Spiritually speaking, we will NEVER experience death!  The “real you” will never die.

The idea that our sins were paid for in full on the cross underscores the idea that Jesus did not have to pay for our sins in hell or anywhere else.  It doesn’t mean that He was never in hell, which we’ve disproved, but He didn’t have to continue paying for our sins after He died on the cross.

Where Did Our Sins Go?

An interesting question is where our sins went after Jesus took them on Himself.  We don’t see any reference that indicates that He threw our sins off before He died after shedding blood on the cross.  In fact, without sins still being on Him, it would have been unjust for God to let Him die spiritually, much less go to hell for three days and three nights.  So I have to conclude that Jesus took our sins with Himself to hell.  However, when He rose, our sins were not on Him anymore, so I think it’s safe to say that He left our sins in hell where they belong.  The believer will never see those sins again because the believer will never visit hell or the second death.  However, the unbeliever will end up in hell with his sins, forever tormented by guilt for what he did because his sins will always be there with him, never to be forgotten.

This demonstrates an issue with the idea that Jesus was in the “paradise part of hell” or “Abraham’s Bosom” after He died.  He couldn’t have left our sins there if “paradise” was relocated to heaven (which I don’t teach, see elsewhere) because our sins definitely aren’t in heaven.

A side question would be, “Jesus paid for the sins of the world, so wouldn’t it make sense to say that the only sin punished in hell will be the sin of failure to receive Jesus as Lord?”  The clear answer is “No.”  Some people in hell will be beaten with more stripes than others and thus will be more miserable than others who also committed the sin of failure to receive Jesus.  If you don’t know Jesus, ALL your sins will be punished FOREVER in hell.

Luke 12:47-48:
And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

If the only sin punished in hell were the sin of not receiving Jesus, everyone would be punished the same way (with the same number of “stripes”).  So there must still be punishment for individual sins.  The unending guilt will be one of the most horrible aspects of hell.  The more sins you did on the earth, the more things you’d feel guilty about forever.  It would be like being covered with raw sewage and knowing that there will NEVER be water so that you can wash yourself and be cleansed from the stinking filth.

Is there any other evidence that our sins were buried in the depths of hell as opposed to just being buried beneath the Pacific Ocean or something?  Yes, there is very good evidence.  Consider the Christian ordinance of baptism, which signifies you going down as a dead person, your sins being washed away and you rising as a new creation in Christ.  If your sins are “washed away” in baptism, where do you sins stay?  They stay BELOW – in the water – they don’t rise with you when you come out of the water!

This seems to be clearly indicated in the verse below:

Acts 22:16:
And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.

Wouldn’t Jesus Have Sinned Like All Other Sinners If He Took on a Sin Nature?

One might assume that if Jesus really “became sin,” He would have cursed God, joined the devil in rebellion or committed some other sin while in hell.  There is certainly nothing in the Bible to indicate that He did, although it is a moot point because sins in hell are not counted anyway.  Judgment is limited to sins committed “in the body.”  While the following verse shows that believers will be judged only for what we do in this life (not heaven), the principle applies that judgment is for deeds in this life only:

2 Corinthians 5:10:
For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

The sins an unbeliever will be judged for are written in books, but there will be no updated copies of these books to reflect anything done in the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:12:
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

Also, Job was in terrible torment when his wife urged him to “curse God and die,” but Job did not do so even though he was spiritually dead, so you can’t make any assumption that Jesus did such a thing either.

While we know that Jesus had to visit hell, there is certainly no record of Him sinning there, though I believe that OUR sins were still on Him for three days and three nights until the day came when God said, “THIS DAY I have begotten You” and our sins were no longer on Him.

Jesus spoke of the “sign of Jonah” being three days and three nights “in the belly of hell,” but yet while in the great fish, there is no indication that Jonah murmured, cursed God, or any such thing – in fact it was quite the opposite when you read what Jonah did.  So fulfilling the sign of Jonah would mean that Jesus did not sin Himself while in hell because of OUR sins:

Jonah 2:1-10:
Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

Back from the Abyss

Paul did not say anything about Christ being brought back from Abraham’s Bosom or heaven, but he DID mention Him being brought back from the abyss, a place so awful that the demons in Gadara begged not to be sent there.  The Greek word abyssos that is translated deep in the following two Scriptures is also translated bottomless pit seven times in the book of Revelation (9:1, 9:2, 9:11, 11:7, 17:8, 20:1, 20:3).

Romans 10:7:
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

Luke 8:31:
And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.

This “deep” could not have been Tartarus where the spirits who sinned in the days of Noah were.  We know this because Romans 10:7 above speaks of Christ being brought up from the dead – literally brought up from the dead ones, not just death.  So this must have been where there were some dead people.

The Soul That Sinneth

God says that the soul that sins will die.

Ezekiel 18:4:
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Ezekiel 18:20:
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Based on these Scriptures, when Jesus became identified with our sins, His soul had to die.

So His death for us was “spirit, soul and body.”

One could question if one’s soul “dying” could be independent of one’s spirit dying.  Consider that your soul is not born again although your spirit is.  So you have a dead soul but a live spirit.  That is why you can still sin.  If your soul were alive to God, you would not have to renew your mind with the Word – it would always be completely renewed and you would know everything, but that day won’t come until the “perfect” has come (1 Corinthians 13:10).  Similarly, your body is not born again.  You will only receive a perfect, spiritually alive body when Jesus returns.

The Baptism Analogy

We are told that we are baptized into Christ’s death, and all of us are commanded to be water baptized to indicate that we are His followers.  Baptism is obviously symbolic, but think about the imagery.  You go down in your sins but rise up without them.  Your sins are washed away.

Romans 6:3-4:
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

While this passage above does not explicitly refer to the act of water baptism, it DOES seem to indicate what water baptism symbolizes.  We died and were raised to new life.  Our sins were washed away.

Acts 22:16:
And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.

Now think about this symbolism.  When you are on your way into the water, are your sins gone (washed away) at that point?  No, they are washed away when you come back up out of the water.  For this to be consistent with what Jesus did, He would have to still have sins on Himself on the way INTO the earth and only be rid of them on His way OUT OF the earth.  They didn’t disappear before He was “under.”  They were still on Him until He rose.  Thus, He would have belonged in hell, not Abraham’s Bosom, during that time.

What About Jesus Being Able to Take His Own Life Back Again (John 10:18)?

Now we must deal with the claim that John 10:18 (below) is proof that Jesus could not have died spiritually because He would then be unable to raise Himself from the dead; the Father or the Spirit would have to do it.  Yet in John 10:18, Jesus said He could take His life back again.  At least one commentary blasts specific famous faith teachers for claiming that Jesus could not have raised Himself out of hell, claiming that this verse disproves the faith teachers’ theology.  Does it?

John 10:18:
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.  This commandment have I received of my Father.

The commentator is assuming that Jesus raised Himself from the dead based on this verse.  But there are a LOT of Scriptures that state that the God the Father raised Him, not that He raised Himself.  While that makes this verse an outlier, we still have to deal with it because it is inspired Scripture.

The first part of the verse is straightforward.  In one strict sense, the Romans could not take credit for killing Jesus because He gave up His spirit. He said that He had power (the Greek word means authority) to lay His life down.

Luke 23:46:
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

However, in a general sense, people killed Jesus, and God doesn’t split hairs over this:

Acts 3:14-15:
But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
And killed the Prince of life, whom God has raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.

But then He says that He has power (again authority) to take it back again.  The word for take is the same one we see in Mark 11:24 when we are to believe we receive things when we pray.

I believe that word settles the problem.  Jesus had the authority to take His life back.  He did not actually say that He would raise Himself; in fact, this shows the opposite because in order for Him to take His life back, He would have to take it back from someone, and that Someone is obviously God the Father based on a large number of Scriptures that state that the Father raised Him from the dead (cited below).  Taking His life back was the command of the Father, not something He just did by Himself.  He had to wait until the Father gave Him that life back, and He was commanded to take it back when that time came.  In other words, He was commanded to rise from the dead.

One of the many Scriptures stating that it was GOD who raised Jesus from the dead is Acts 3:14-15 quoted above.  Here are others:

Acts 2:32:
This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

Acts 3:26:
Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

Acts 4:10:
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.

Acts 5:30:
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

Acts 13:30:
But God raised him from the dead:

Acts 13:33:
God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

(Note that this verse says that God “begat” Jesus when He raised Him from the dead.  This clearly refers to the resurrection and not to His birth in Bethlehem.  This verse does NOT state that Jesus begat Himself that day.)

Acts 13:34:
And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.

Acts 17:31:
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Romans 4:24:
But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

Romans 6:4:
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Romans 8:11:
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Romans 10:9:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

1 Corinthians 15:15:
Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

2 Corinthians 4:14:
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

Galatians 1:1:
Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

Ephesians 1:20:
Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

Colossians 2:12:
Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

1 Thessalonians 1:10:
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

2 Timothy 2:8:
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:

(Though God is not mentioned explicitly in the verse above, it clearly does not say that Jesus “raised Himself from the dead.”  The passive voice shows that Someone else did it.  The same applies to the verse below.)

Matthew 16:21:
From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

1 Peter 1:21:
Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Here is the one other Scripture with a different slant:

1 Peter 3:18:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

While the Spirit was involved in the quickening, it is obvious that God the Father initiated the proceedings given all the verses above.  This particular verse speaks of the spiritual quickening of Jesus, not His physical resurrection.  How do we know?   The next verse says, “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”  Jesus did not preach to these spirits while in His body – His body was still in a tomb on the surface of the earth!

Given the overwhelming evidence that it was GOD who raised Jesus from the dead, we cannot deduce from John 10:18 that Jesus just raised Himself from the dead with no intervention required by God the Father or the Holy Spirit.  That should by crystal clear by now, so I rest my case.

If Jesus had remained spiritually alive the whole time, He could have raised Himself from the dead.

Why Didn’t the Universe Unravel?

Critics of the idea that Jesus died and rose spiritually as well as physically like to ask how the universe didn’t unravel if Jesus went to hell.  The argument is that Jesus upholds everything with the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3), so if He were ever lost in hell, the universe would no longer be upheld and it would all unravel.  The obvious answer is that the universe didn’t unravel the whole time that Jesus was on the earth subject to all of man’s limitations.  Man is certainly limited in that he cannot uphold the universe.  If Jesus could live about thirty-three years subject to man’s limitations without having the universe fall apart, there is no reason to believe that the universe had to fall apart while He was “in the heart of the earth” for three more days and nights.

Denying the Blood?

One of the most pointed criticisms of the idea that Jesus died and rose spiritually as well as physically is the claim that proponents of the idea deny Jesus’ blood atonement by saying that Jesus had to make atonement in hell because His bloodshed wasn’t enough to pay for our sins.  This is cited as outright heresy, and those preachers and their followers are supposedly lost because they deny the blood of Jesus.  However, I don’t know a single one of those teachers who claims that Jesus’ blood didn’t have to be shed on the cross as part of the plan of redemption.  Therefore, I don’t see them as blood-denying heretics.  In my case, I DO preach that Jesus’ blood completely purchased our forgiveness before He went to hell, so you can’t apply the “blood-denying heretic” label to me anyway.  Jesus did not pay for our sins in hell because no one will ever “pay for” sins in hell; people will only be punished for sins because they failed to accept Jesus’ payment on the cross for their sins.  If you could pay for your sins in hell, you could eventually pay your way out of hell and hell would be like the fictitious “Purgatory” that the Roman Catholic Church invented.

My point is that Jesus’ spiritual death and resurrection are what enabled us to receive the new birth so that we could be righteous new creations instead of forgiven sinners.  Even the most “orthodox” reader will have to admit that in addition to shedding blood, Christ had to DIE for our sins and then RISE again – because the Scriptures cited earlier in this topic explicitly say so!  His spiritual death and resurrection were the only things that could save us from continuing to be forgiven slaves of sin who keep sinning even though we’re forgiven.  His spiritual death and resurrection were required to finally fix the sin problem that Adam brought onto mankind.

Saving the Savior?

Another argument is that if Jesus really became sin and went to hell, He would need someone else to be His Savior, and of course there could never be another Savior.  Or could there be?  It is easy to overlook the fact that GOD is also called our Savior, so there is no contradiction in asserting that God Himself was Jesus’ Savior from judgment given that He is OUR Savior from judgment.  God also identifies Himself as the Savior of His people throughout the Old Testament and even in the New Testament, as we will see below.

2 Samuel 22:3:
The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

Psalm 106:21:
They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt;

Isaiah 43:3:
For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

Isaiah 43:11:
I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

Isaiah 45:15:
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.

Isaiah 45:21:
Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

Isaiah 49:26:
And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

Isaiah 60:16:
Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

Isaiah 63:8:
For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour.

Jeremiah 14:8:
O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?

Hosea 13:4:
Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

Luke 1:47:
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

1 Timothy 2:3:
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;

1 Timothy 4:10:
For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

Titus 1:3:
But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;

Titus 3:4:
But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

Jude 25:
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Now there are plenty of other Scriptures asserting that JESUS is our Savior.  So what do we make of that?  Well, two things.  God SENT Jesus, so He was our Savior in that sense.  But also, God raised Jesus from the dead, which was an essential part of the plan of salvation as well.  So Someone did save Jesus from hell – God the Father Himself!

If Jesus never died spiritually, He could have just raised HIMSELF from the dead!  The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father (see the barrage of Scriptures about this in the section about John 10:18 above) and the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 3:18) shows that Jesus could NOT raise Himself from the dead.  That is why He had to commit His spirit to His Father (Luke 23:46), as we saw earlier.  He identified with us in our spiritually dead state where we were also unable to raise ourselves from the dead.

This is further evidence of His spiritual death and resurrection.

It seems to be a given that once Jesus’ righteousness was restored by having our sins no longer “on” Him and no longer “being” sin for us, He would not belong in Hades anymore, so the question is when that event happened.  After a second in Hades?  After three days and nights in Hades?  After five hours and thirty-seven minutes in Hades?  It would be nice if a specific verse said when the exact moment was that it happened, but I haven’t found such a verse.

We know part of the timeline – Jesus preached to the spirits in prison AFTER His righteousness was restored.

1 Peter 3:18-19:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

But that still doesn’t tell us exactly when it happened.

If the “one second in hell” presumption were true, He could have been quickened a second after He got there, proclaimed His victory to the spirits there, and immediately gone to Abraham’s Bosom to make it in time for “today” to be with the thief who had been on the cross.  This would seem to let us have our cake and eat it too as far as the different theories go, and we wouldn’t have to debate where the comma should have gone in Luke 23:43.  Given that Jesus could not be in Hades for all eternity, it doesn’t seem needing to be there for one second would be materially different from needing to be there three days and nights from a theological perspective.

Have we sorted this out in a way that can keep a maximum number of people happy?

I don’t think so.  One difficulty now is why Jesus would have to hang around Abraham’s Bosom for even a second after His fellowship with God had been restored.  Is there any reason Jesus should have been spiritually raised but then have to wait three days to be physically raised?  A more serious difficulty is that the phrase, “This day have I begotten thee” (Acts 13:33), which refers to the day of Jesus’ resurrection, does not say, “Three days ago have I begotten thee.”  His spiritual “begetting” had to be on the same day as His physical resurrection.

Looking at 1 Peter 3:18-19 again, we know that the chronology is that (1) Jesus was quickened by the Spirit (2) Jesus went and preached by that Spirit to the spirits in prison.  It seems that the word “went” meant that He was somewhere else first.  (The Greek word for went means went or departed.)  Could that somewhere else have been Abraham’s Bosom?  If so, that would mean that He was “quickened by the Spirit” in Abraham’s Bosom.  But if He were spiritually dead, He didn’t belong in Abraham’s Bosom until He was spiritually alive again; He belonged in Hades with the bad people and fallen angels.  Does this mean that He couldn’t have been spiritually dead after all, given that He was supposedly in a place for people who would end up in heaven?

No, there’s another explanation.  The “spirits in prison” are demonstrated elsewhere to be fallen angels kept under judgment in a location known as Tartarus, not Hades.  So Jesus could have been in Hades after all and then “gone” to Tartarus to declare His victory to the condemned angels.  So there is no proof that Jesus went from Abraham’s Bosom to Tartarus.

Confusion regarding this may be what has led some people to a completely different interpretation of 1 Peter 3:18-20, namely that it is just mentioning that Jesus HAD preached to those people through Noah in the days of Noah and that it has nothing to do with what He did after He died on the cross.  This avoids the conundrum I pointed out, but it seems painfully thin to say that Jesus preached through Noah.  Also, Peter didn’t say that Jesus preached to the spirits who later ended up in prison; He said that Jesus preached to the spirits who were in prison.  I think that tanks the alternate days-of-Noah interpretation.  So does the fact that “spirits” did not refer to people, who would have been called “souls” as Peter called them in the same passage.  (This is discussed at greater length elsewhere.)

Must we conclude that when Peter said that Jesus was “quickened by the Spirit,” it referred to His physical resurrection and that His visit to Hades was sometime after He rose from the dead physically?  No, that does not make sense, because His resurrection proved that His soul was not “left in Hades.”

Besides, as proved elsewhere, Paradise, according to Paul, is synonymous with the third heaven, not Abraham’s Bosom.  Because paradise and the third heaven are the same, it does not make sense to advance the theory that Jesus relocated paradise to heaven.

When did Jesus “ascend?”  It was NOT between His death and resurrection, as proved by His own words:

John 20:17:
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

Jesus’ reason for not touching Him was that He had not yet ascended, but eight days later, Jesus commanded Thomas to touch Him.

John 20:26-27:
And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

So this would give us an eight-day window during which Jesus could have ascended and taken the captives from Abraham’s Bosom to heaven.  But to be super-sure, we should check the other gospels before making a final pronouncement to the world about this timeline.

We find this, which disproves an eight-day window.

Matthew 28:9:
And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

This is almost immediately after the previous account as the women were leaving the tomb.  It looks like the eight-day window is what is in a tomb now.

There was still a gap between when Jesus talked to Mary in John 20:17 above and Matthew 28:9 because it says that Jesus MET them, indicating that He was out of their sight temporarily.  But that seems to be so little time that the idea that Jesus visited heaven in between those encounters is at best highly suspect.  Yet before someone couldn’t touch Him and eight days later, someone could touch Him, and the reason for not touching Him the first time is that He had not ascended, how could it be any different?

Does any other Scripture even talk about His ascension?  If so, maybe we could get some clarification.  Fortunately, there is such a reference.

Ephesians 4:8-10:
Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

This passage reminds us that Jesus was in the lower parts of the earth for a while, not in heaven, after He died, and it also tells us that He ascended, leading captivity captive, going far above all heavens, filling all things.  So He freed the people in Abraham’s Bosom when He ascended.  But He had not yet ascended when He spoke to Mary, so this now looks like it must have happened AFTER His conversation with Mary, which at least we know was AFTER He rose from the dead.

But there is another clue in the passage above.  When Jesus ascended, He also filled all things, and that appears to be a reference to His final ascension from the earth, as it would not seem to apply sooner.  So now it appears that His relocation of the people in Abraham’s Bosom to heaven must have taken place after He was taken up in the clouds, not sooner – not between conversations with women after He rose from the dead and certainly not before He rose bodily from the tomb.  Otherwise, we must assert that there are two or three separate ascensions: (1) Being taken up into the clouds in front of the disciples, (2) Taking captives form Abraham’s Bosom to heaven, (3) Presenting His blood in the heavenly holy of holies.  Can we really take a position that there were multiple ascensions?  I don’t think so, given what Paul said happened when He ascended on high.  I think we are safe saying that there was only one, which rules out a quick visit to heaven between conversations with women before He ascended on high.  Also, consider the following verse:

Hebrews 9:12:
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

Whatever Jesus did in the Holy Place could not have been part of the plan of redemption, because He had already obtained it for us before His arrival there.  This rules out a separate ascension being needed to sprinkle items in the Holy Place.  In fact, His entry there once makes a strong argument that there was only one ascension – into the clouds – and not separate ones to gather the faithful dead in Abraham's Bosom or sprinkle the heavenly tabernacle.

The matter of Jesus’ blood and the holy place is tackled in much more detail in another discussion.  You may wonder why I’ve made such a big deal about there being only one ascension.  It is to demonstrate that Jesus did NOT visit Abraham’s Bosom so that He could lead the “captives” to heaven between His death and resurrection.

Wasn’t It His BODY That Was Begotten?

Most people assume that when God said, “This day have I begotten You,” He meant that His BODY was begotten because He got a new, immortal body that could suddenly be somewhere without having to travel there.  (We already know from earlier in this discussion that God couldn’t have meant His incarnation because the verse in question is tied to the resurrection.)  How can we really know that God meant His spirit instead?  Let’s look at the verse again:

Acts 13:33:
God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

Jesus never ceased to be the second member of the Trinity, but He did lose His fellowship privileges with God when God forsook Him on the cross just before He died due to His unrighteous state caused by our sins.   I believe that the statement “Thou art my Son” indicates that sonship privileges were restored to Him on the day of His resurrection, not on the cross before He died and descended into the earth.

God can certainly use the term “begotten” in a spiritual sense – He did in the verse below using the same Greek word found in Acts 13:33:

1 Peter 1:3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

This definitely refers to being begotten spiritually, not physically.  The spiritual sense is also found below using the same Greek word:

1 John 5:18:
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

(This clearly refers to our born-again spirits that are incapable of siding with sin, as we DO continue to sin if you include our unregenerated flesh in the picture.)

I believe the clincher is the verse below, which also uses the same Greek word found in Acts 13:33:

Revelation 1:5:
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

While Jesus was the first to receive an immortal body, He was NOT the first person to rise from the dead physically, as there were physical resurrections from the dead in the Old Testament to say nothing of the people Jesus raised from the dead in His own ministry before He died and rose form the dead.  (These are enumerated elsewhere.)  Thus, John could not have meant that Jesus was the first to be “begotten” physically, leaving only the explanation that He was the first to be begotten spiritually.

Did Jesus, Who Was God, Temporarily Have Satan’s Nature?

The biggest stumbling block to many people in the matter of Jesus dying spiritually is the assertion by some faith teachers (not including me) that Jesus temporarily took on Satan’s nature.  We need to settle this one, because a lot of people get very upset at faith teachers over this one point.  Let’s see if it has any merit.

Satan sinned from the beginning.

1 John 3:8:
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Jesus didn’t sin from the beginning; He didn’t sin AT ALL.  The sins He took on were all ours, as He had none of His own.  He was punished for OUR sins, not His own sins.

Yet He BECAME sin and BECAME a curse because of our sins.  He had to take on spiritual death.  Some teachers equate spiritual death with having Satan’s nature because of the verse below and a few others like it.

John 8:44:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

However, there is an important technical problem with this.  Satan is a fallen angel who has never been a fallen person by nature.  To say that Jesus took on Satan’s nature is to say that He took on the nature of a fallen angel, which has never been the fate of a sinning person and never will be.  So I will buck the “Word of Faith tradition” on this one and say that Jesus did NOT take on Satan’s nature, and that Satan’s nature and the nature of a fallen person are two distinct natures when you get technical about it.  You can assert, as I do, that Jesus had to share in our fallen nature and have God forsake Him, without taking on the nature of Satan.

I should also point out that if Jesus literally took on Satan’s nature, He would have been beyond redemption just like Satan and all other fallen angels.  Fallen angels can never be born again; only fallen people can.

But if Jesus became sin, how could God justly ever “justify” Him or let Him out of hell?  I believe one reason it is because God recognized that the condition Jesus was in was not due to any sin on His own part.  His “becoming sin” was because of OUR sins.  Another obvious reason is that if He never rose, we would still be in our sins.  The Bible never explains why three days and three nights was the appropriate amount of time before He could be “justified in the Spirit” and released from hell, so I have no explanation for you on that particular detail.  I just believe that it’s so because that’s what I see in Scripture.

Final Comments

Any reader should understand that Jesus took our sins on Himself and was punished accordingly.  Before He rose from the dead, there HAD to be a point in time when our sins ceased to be on Him.  This is the point at which He “rose spiritually.”  Whatever you might call it, this event had to happen.  The moment we are born again is when our sins are no longer “on us,” so I have no trouble using that term to describe what happened to Jesus.

Perhaps you disagree with my conclusions, but I think you would be hard-pressed to find a better explanation for the Scriptures in question.  At the very least, I hope that I have demonstrated to you that a theology of Jesus dying and rising spiritually as well as physically is not some farfetched cultic teaching, as there is plenty of Scripture to support it.  And because it isn’t cultic teaching, faith preachers should not be considered Trinity-denying heretics.  I hope that I’ve also managed to show you that a theology where Jesus DIDN’T die and rise spiritually doesn’t fit the rest of Scripture, though I won’t accuse you of being an evil cultist if you don’t believe that He died and rose spiritually as well as physically.  Christians are entitled to different views on non-essential topics like this difficult one.

See also:

What Happened Between the Cross and the Throne?