This is part 5 of my Actual Good News series of articles on the topic of biblical soteriology (the study of salvation).
Please note that I’m including many of my scriptural references in the links (which are are the underlined words throughout the article), and they also link to studies with extended details that I couldn’t fit into the article, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references.
When Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 what the Gospel was that his readers believed when they were saved (referring to the special “eternal” — meaning “age-pertaining,” or “eonian” — life, as we learned in Part 3 of this series, which is the type of salvation that involves being immersed into the body of Christ), he wrote that not only did they come to believe that Christ died for our sins, but also that He was buried (or that He was entombed, depending on your Bible version), and that He rose again the third day (or that He has been roused the third day, depending on your Bible version). Now, every Christian out there will claim to agree that these words are true, but few of them actually understand what they mean, and can you really believe something that you don’t understand? Yes, all of us who call ourselves Bible believers agree that the words “Christ died for our sins” and “He was buried” are true, but how many Christians actually agree that “He was buried”? Most Christians believe that His body was buried, but they also believe that He Himself went somewhere else altogether, meaning they believe He went to another dimension called “hell” — or “hades,” depending on their preferred Bible translation — as a conscious being for those three days (based on a misunderstanding of what happens after we die, as we learned in the previous article of this series, and please read it if you’re still under the impression that the dead are conscious), even if it was in a part of “hell” known as “Abraham’s bosom,” which many also believe is referred to as “paradise” (based on another misunderstanding of another passage that I’ll discuss in the next article of this series). The problem is, Paul didn’t say that only Christ’s body died. What he said was that “Christ died”; and he didn’t say that only Christ’s body was buried while He Himself went somewhere else, but rather that “He was buried,” which means that He Himself was placed in the tomb, not that He Himself went somewhere else while His body was placed in the tomb (“He was buried” is a passive statement as far as Christ’s person goes, so even if you believe that Christ Himself actually ended up in the tomb temporarily as a ghost (which would make Him the only human to ever remain conscious after death, based on everything we learned about death in Part 4 of this series), the wording of that passage can’t be interpreted to mean He followed His body to the tomb from the cross as a ghost, and then went somewhere else from there after His body was buried, or even just remained in the tomb as a ghost for three days, because the way the verse is worded tells us that He had no involvement in being buried at all, other than passively having it happen to Him; so unless his pallbearers also had some sort of mystical object or magical spell which they used to drag Him into the tomb as a ghost after He died — which wouldn’t fit with what John 19:30 says, since it says He “gave up the ghost,” not that He became a ghost — it can’t legitimately be said that “He was buried” unless He was His body and nothing more at that point). Paul didn’t just randomly include the words “He was buried” in this passage for no reason (all Scripture is inspired by God, and every word God inspired to be written down is meant to be there, which means every word is there for a reason, rather than just being arbitrarily thrown in there by the human writer as would be the case if those who believe in the immortality of the soul were correct). If Christ’s (and not just His body’s) burial wasn’t a crucial part of what Paul said his readers believed when they were saved, he would have just written that “Christ died for our sins and rose again the third day,” and left those particular words about His burial out altogether, since mentioning that fact would have then been entirely superfluous (not to mention deceptive, at least to anyone who takes the words written there seriously). There’s a reason that Paul included the words “He was buried” as something he claimed those who experience the special “eternal” life sort of salvation he wrote about have to believe, and the reason is that we have to believe (which means we have to first understand) what those specific words actually mean. (And for anyone who might still be skeptical, if Paul was trying to tell us it’s important to believe that Christ actually did lose consciousness when He died — just as He would have every time He went to sleep, unless you believe He remained fully aware of Himself and His surroundings when He slept as well — and that He Himself was buried rather than just His body while He went elsewhere, I’d like you to tell me what Paul would have needed to have written differently there in order to convince you of this.)
And before someone tries to protest, saying that Jesus had the power to resurrect Himself, which means He must have been conscious, pointing out Jesus’ claim in John 10:18 that He had power to take His life again, the word “power” in this verse in the KJV, translated from the Greek ἐξουσία/“ex-oo-see’-ah,” is just referring to the sort of right that someone in a position of authority has to have an action they wish to be completed actually be performed (and, in fact, the word literally just means “authority”). For example, just because a king is said to have the “power” to tax the citizens of his country doesn’t mean he personally goes to every single citizen of the country and forces them to give him the money directly; it just means that he has the legal authority to expect they’ll pay their taxes. Likewise, Pilate had the “power” (also translated from the Greek ἐξουσία) to crucify Jesus, but that doesn’t mean he physically performed the actual crucifixion himself with his own strength (if he did, the Greek word δύναμις/“doo’-nam-is” — which does refer to strength or ability in the Bible — would have been used in the original Greek in John 19:10-11 instead, as well as in John 10:18 if Jesus meant He actually had the ability to resurrect Himself from the dead), but instead he had his soldiers do the actual deed under his legal authority (and so, what Jesus said just meant: “I have the right to lay [my life] down, and I have the right to receive it again,” and He did receive it again, when He was woken from His sleep by His Father). Likewise, when Jesus parabolically said in John 2:19 that He would raise His body three days after His death, it’s important to remember the fact that “He was buried,” and that any passage we read about His resurrection has to be interpreted in such a way that it doesn’t contradict this crucial part of what Paul said his readers believed when they were saved, which means that Jesus could only be referring to raising His body in the sense of getting up off the slab in the tomb after His God and Father resurrected Him from the dead (which is Who the Bible says actually raised Him from the dead anyway). The context of this passage in John wasn’t about His ability to resurrect Himself to begin with; if you read the whole passage, you’ll see that it was simply about how the fact that He wouldn’t remain dead would be a sign to the people who heard Him.
Of course, some will now ask, “But doesn’t 1 Peter 3:19 say that Jesus preached to spirits in prison while He was dead?” Well, no, it doesn’t. He didn’t preach to the spirits until after His body was quickened/made immortal (which obviously couldn’t happen until after His body was resurrected from the dead), as we can see from the verse before that one. But regardless, Peter said He was preaching to spirits, not to souls. Since, as we learned in the previous article in this series, the spirits of dead humans return to God in heaven (just as Jesus’ spirit did when He died, unlike His soul, which instead was said to have figuratively gone to “hell,” demonstrating that human spirits and souls are not the same thing), the spirits He was preaching to couldn’t have been humans, which means they must have instead been disobedient spiritual beings, exactly as Peter said they were. They weren’t the spirits of humans, but rather were the spiritual beings who sinned in Noah’s time by breeding with humans (and creating the giants who became mighty men of renown, also sometimes referred to as the Nephilim), and who were then locked up in the version of “hell” sometimes known as Tartarus because of their sin. Besides, all passages have to be interpreted in light of Christ’s burial anyway, so it goes without saying that any attempts to argue that Jesus was actually conscious while He was dead are nonstarters because of that fact alone, and that any passages we think might imply He was actually still alive have to be interpreted accordingly.
But is it really so important that we should care what Paul meant when he wrote that Christ died and was buried? Well, yes, very much so! It’s only when we realize that Christ actually died and that He Himself was buried that we can truly appreciate His faith in going to the cross. You see, He knew that, unless His Father resurrected Him, He would have remained dead (meaning He would have ceased to exist permanently), and, as Paul explained in Romans 3:21–23, this is the faith that ultimately saves us: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ [not “by faith in Jesus Christ”; this is all about Christ’s faith, not our own] unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference.” Unfortunately, because almost no Bible believers actually believe that Christ truly died for our sins and really was buried, instead believing that only His body did and was, while He Himself lived on and went somewhere else altogether, none of these people can be said to have been baptized into the body of Christ yet, since they haven’t truly believed what Paul said those who experience the special sort of salvation he wrote about will believe at the time they’re saved.
[This also means that, unless one can find a way to square the doctrine of the Trinity with Christ’s actual death and burial as explained in this article, it’s impossible for a Trinitarian — or a Modalist, for the same reasons — to be a member of the body of Christ. And Christ’s actual death and burial aren’t the only scriptural basis for rejecting Trinitarianism, which I cover a little more in this (as well as which are covered by others in the links from this) article: One God, the Father]
Please click here for Part 6 of this series.