‘Holy Saturday’
Crown of thorns
Today is called ‘Holy Saturday’ by the Roman Catholics. This year the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox are celebrating the day called Pascha (which is the Greek word for Passover) by the Eastern/Greek Orthodox and called ‘Easter‘ by English-speaking Protestants and Catholics on different days (for the Orthodox it is a week later).
Now, the Bible does call the Sabbath day holy which, on the Roman calendar is a day called Saturday:
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. (Exodus 20:8-9)
But that is not what Roman Catholics mean when they call today “Holy Saturday.”
The Apostle Paul taught that Jesus died and that is essentially like being asleep:
34 … It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 4:14)
Yet, many falsely claim that Jesus did not really die, but that He descended into ‘hell’/hades to preach to fallen angels and/or others after His physical death on the stake.
Vatican News today called that “an ancient tradition” as opposed to a biblical teaching:
20 April 2019
Holy Saturday is the interlude between the pain of the death of Jesus and the joy of His resurrection. No liturgy is celebrated during the day. In silent expectation, the Christian community relives the loss of the disciples of Christ as recollection and meditation reign supreme. …
Even if everything seems to be silent, Christ is at work. In fact, according to ancient tradition, on this day, Jesus descended into the realm of the dead to save man and take him along with Him to heaven, where He precedes us and where He awaits us with open arms.
In the realm of the dead, Jesus meets Adam, the first man who here symbolizes the whole of humanity, shakes him out of his slumber and proclaims His salvation from which no one is excluded. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2019-04/holy-saturday-silence-expectation-mary.html
Here is some of what the Church of Rome has historically taught that happened on the day they call Holy Saturday:
What happened on the first Holy Saturday?
Here on earth, Jesus’ disciples mourned his death and, since it was a sabbath day, they rested. …
What happened to Jesus while he was dead?
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.
Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:
“It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”
Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
634 “The gospel was preached even to the dead.” The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment.
This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption. http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/12-things-you-need-to-know-about-holy-saturday3
632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.478 This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.479 (479 Cf. 1 Pet 3:18-19.) (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 632)
While Jesus’ disciples mourned His death and would have rested on the Sabbath, when Jesus was dead, He was actually dead. Though He was raised from the dead on the day we now call Saturday.
There are several theological problems with the Roman view of ‘Holy Saturday.” Consider:
- If Jesus did not really die, which He did (Romans 5:8, 8:34; 1 Thessalonians 5:10), then He did not really give His life.
- Jesus said He would be like Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish (Matthew 12:40)–does anyone really claim that Jonah preached in ‘hades’ (called sheol in Hebrew) during that time? It is certainly not recorded that Jonah did that in the Old Testament.
- There is no New Testament teaching that Jesus descended into Hades to preach to various spirits or dead humans. Plus dead humans are dead (see Did Early Christians Believe that Humans Possessed Immortality? and What Happens After Death?).
On that third point, first let me quote the Bible:
27 For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. (Acts 2:27)
That passage does NOT say that Jesus descended and preached. Consider also the word translated as Hades means the grave or place of the dead.
It is NOT the same word as Gehenna (which had a fire) that is often translated as hell in many New Testaments.
It is also NOT the same word as Tartarosas which is used as a place of restraint for fallen angels (2 Peter 2:4). The Bible never teaches that Jesus went there after He was executed.
Furthermore, realize that Acts 2:27 is a quote (per Acts 2:25) of something David wrote in the Psalms:
10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. (Psalms 16:10)
Sheol also means grave or place of the dead. Notice the following where Sheol is translated as grave:
5 For in death there is no remembrance of You; In the grave who will give You thanks? (Psalms 6:5, NKJV; both the Catholic NJB and NABRE leave the word as Sheol, instead of using the translation as grave–see their Psalm 6:6)
Now let me refer to a statement from the late French Cardinal Jean-Guenole-Marie Danielou on whether the New Testament teaches the descent:
The Descent Into Hell…This doctrine appears nowhere in the New Testament,1
1 So W. Bieder, Die Vorstellung von der Hollenfardt Jesus Christi, p. 128
(Danielou, Cardinal Jean-Guenole-Marie. The Theology of Jewish Christianity. Translated by John A. Baker. The Westminister Press, 1964, p. 233)
Anyway, Jesus was dead for three days and three nights. Jesus emptied Himself of His divinity upon incarnation (Philippians 2:7) and did not receive it back until He was resurrected (cf. John 20:24-29).
As far as WHEN He preached to certain fallen angels, the idea is claimed to come from 1 Peter 3:18-20). So let’s look at that:
Jesus Christ was the same God who walked and talked with Moses in the wilderness — the same “I AM” (see Ex. 3:14) who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. Paul makes this plain. “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the [Red] sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea…. For they drank from the same supernatural Rock which followed them, and the [‘that,’ KJV] Rock was Christ” (I Cor. 10:1-4).
This same Personage in the Godhead presided over the Flood in Noah’s day. Peter gives us the facts: “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 [Christ] went and preached unto the spirits [demons] in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (I Peter 3:18-20, KJV). (Schroeder JR. Who Was Jesus? Good News magazine, November 1975)
The time frame of the ‘descent’ was the time of Noah and that flood. Thus, it DID NOT happen during the time called the ‘crucifixion week.’
It has been said that Mel Gibson’s upcoming Passion movie is promoting this error. Here is a video about that:
Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion of the Christ’ movie grossed over $600 million. He is working on a sequel tentatively titled ‘Resurrection.’ The actor who plays Jesus (Jim Caviezel) said this movie will have “shocking” parts. One part, that has been reported, is the idea that Jesus went to Hades after the crucifixion and prior to the resurrection to preach to souls in “hell.”‘ Is that what the New Testament teaches? Is this something original to the Apostles and what is called the “Apostles” Creed’? Did Jesus really die? What do the terms Hades, Sheol, Tartarosas, and Gehenna signify? What does the Bible teach about when Jesus preached in Tartarosas? Did Jerome include this in his Latin Vulgate? Is the ‘descent into Hades’ (Acts 2:27) the same as taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church? What does the Bible teach us? Dr. Thiel answers these questions and more.
Here is a link to our video: ‘Passion’ sequel: Descent into Hades.
Do not let anyone mislead you that the ‘descent into hell’ position was taught in the Bible or was part of the original teaching of the Apostles.
Those who wish to learn more should also study the following articles:
What Happened in the ‘Crucifixion Week’? How long are three days and three nights? Was Palm Sunday on a Saturday? Did Jesus die on “Good Friday”? Was the resurrection on Sunday? Do you really know? Who determined the date of Easter? (Here is a related link in Spanish/español: ¿Murió Jesús un día miércoles o un viernes?) A sermon of related interest is titled What did and did not happen in the ‘Crucifixion week’?
What Was the Original Apostles’ Creed? What is the Nicene Creed? Did the original apostles write a creed? When was the first creed written? Are the creeds commonly used by the Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholics original?
Did Early Christians Believe that Humans Possessed Immortality? What does John 3:16, and other writings, tell us? Did a doctrine kept adopted from paganism? Here is a YouTube video titled Are humans immortal?
The Rich Man and Lazarus What was Jesus teaching in Luke 16?
Where are Enoch and Elijah? Booklet by the late Dr. Herman Hoeh.
What Happens After Death? Is death like sleep, or is that a cultic idea? Can you speak to the dead? Here is a link to a related sermon: What really happens after death?
The Second Death The New Testament speaks of something called the “second death.” Who will be subject to it? How does it end? Here is a link to a related sermon: First death, Second death.
Study the Bible Course Lesson 15: What is “Hell”? What are the different words translated as “hell” in English? Does Gehenna mean something different than Hades. What happens? What about worms dying not?
Are The Wicked Tormented Forever or Burned Up? How does one explain Revelation 14:11 in light of Malachi 4:3? What happens to the incorrigibly wicked?
Did Early Christians Celebrate Easter? If not, when did this happen? What do scholars and the Bible reveal?
Why Easter? Did early Christians observe Easter? What are the origins of Easter? What does Easter have to do with the goddess Ishtar. Where did the word Easter come from? Where do Easter eggs come from? What do rabbits have to do with Easter? Was Jesus resurrected on a Sunday? This is a video.
Should You Observe God’s Holy Days or Demonic Holidays? This is a free pdf booklet explaining what the Bible and history shows about God’s Holy Days and popular holidays. A related sermon is Which Spring Days should Christians observe?
The History of Early Christianity Are you aware that what most people believe is not what truly happened to the true Christian church? Do you know where the early church was based? Do you know what were the doctrines of the early church? Is your faith really based upon the truth or compromise?
Continuing History of the Church of God This pdf booklet is a historical overview of the true Church of God and some of its main opponents from Acts 2 to the 21st century. Related sermon links include Continuing History of the Church of God: c. 31 to c. 300 A.D. and Continuing History of the Church of God: 4th-16th Centuries and Continuing History of the Church of God: 17th-20th Centuries. The booklet is available in Spanish: Continuación de la Historia de la Iglesia de Dios, German: Kontinuierliche Geschichte der Kirche Gottes, French: L Histoire Continue de l Église de Dieu and Ekegusii Omogano Bw’ekanisa Ya Nyasae Egendererete.
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