Ever Wondered What Happened Between Good Friday And Resurrection Sunday? Where Did Jesus Go And What Did He Accomplish?

So I am writing this on Easter Saturday. We celebrated the death of Jesus yesterday at our Good Friday services and on Sunday we will celebrate his resurrection . So what happened between Friday and Sunday? Ever Wondered.

Well here is what I see in scripture happened. First a little context.

Recently I was preaching on types of Christ and I came across this scripture and it troubled me

Matt 12:40

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

So Jesus said that Jonah was a type of Jesus.

Most people know the story of Jonah. He was a Minor Prophet in the Old Testament that was told by God to go and preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Jonah doesn’t want to and so he goes in the opposite direction on a boat. Ultimately he is in a major storm and gets thrown overboard by the crew and is swallowed by a whale.

Some commentators believe that Jonah actually died in the whale. Check out this verse

Jonah 2:6

To the roots of the mountains I sank down;

the earth beneath barred me in forever.

But you brought my life up from the pit,

O LORD my God.

So after three days he got vomited up on the shore and he goes and preaches to Nineveh and Nineveh repents.

Go forward about 6 or 700 years, Jesus says “As Jonah was in the belly of the whale, so must I be in the belly of the whale 3 days and 3 nights.”

What happened when Jesus died?

He went to the belly of the earth, but what did he do?

He died on the cross, disappeared for three days and then he comes back.

Where did He go and what did He do?

The bible doesn’t say a real lot about what He did do. But it gives us some clues that we can draw conclusions from.

Acts 2:31

he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.

Peter is preaching and he talks about Jesus and he said that when Jesus died his soul wasn’t left in Hades. But he was resurrected. So we know, that when Jesus died on the cross, he went to a place called Hades.

Ephesians 4:7 & 8

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says:

“When He ascended on high,

He led captivity captive,

And gave gifts to men.”[a]

9(Now this, “He ascended”–what does it mean but that He also first[b] descended into the lower parts of the earth?

So we know

No 1- He went into Hades

No 2 -He descended into the lower parts of the Earth.

1 Peter 3:18-19

18For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us[a] to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,

We know Jesus was born at Christmas. (I know this is not technically correct but go with it.)

We know He died at Easter.

We know that He died on the cross and went down to a place called “Hades”

We know according to Ephesians that it was down, in the lower parts of the earth.

We know that He preached to the spirits that are in prison.

But I don’t believe that you can have a second chance once you die. Thus a problem with the idea that Jesus went down there and preached to the spirits in prison.

I have done some research and want to bring some thoughts to you and bring some clarity to this scripture.

In the English language, there is one word for hell and that is, hell.

In the bible there is 3 words for hell. And only one of them is hell as we understand the term.

The first one is Sheol.Which is used only in the Old Testament.

The second one is Hades.Which is used only in the New Testament.

They are the same place. Just a different language.

Sheol and Hades is a temporary place where people go once they have departed this life. This was pre resurrection of Jesus.

Ps 139:8

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the Sheol, you are there

Job 7:9

As a cloud vanishes and is gone,

so he who goes down to Sheol does not return.

Hades is defined in the Strong’s Greek Dictionary, as the place of departed souls.