The Truth About Silent Saturday

What Every Christian Needs To Know...

"For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, in which he also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:18–19, CSB)

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

You may have heard the phrase, "Things are not always what they seem." Here is a quick list of things that may surprise you. You may be thinking a firefly must be a fly. It's not; it's a beetle. Or a prairie dog is a dog. It's not; it's a rodent! Or how about a horned toad? Clearly, this must be a toad. It's not. It is a lizard! You see, just because something is called something, or looks a certain way, doesn't mean we are seeing the full picture of what it is.

The Disciples' Darkest Day

You may be faced with something so difficult at this very moment. It may seem like a closed door or a flat-out rejection. This is probably exactly how those first disciples of Jesus felt as they watched Jesus hang on the cross, breathe His last breath, and die. This must have been the heavy burden of their heart as they laid His body in a tomb. These feelings must have been their only companion on the day after Jesus died and the day before He rose again from the grave—a day we've come to know as "Silent Saturday."

I sometimes wonder what the silence of Saturday meant to those first followers of Jesus. All they knew is what they saw: the death of the One they believed was the Messiah. The sudden end of any hope of liberation from Rome snatched away. Every minute of silence, a reminder that they were still hopeless. Or were they?

(source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarrowingBermejo.jpg)¹

Beyond What We Can See

But friend, "things are not always what they seem."

2 Kings 6:17 unpacks this reality powerfully when Elisha prays for his servant to have his eyes opened so he can see the cosmic reality around him. And it is this same prayer we need to pray and hold onto today.

The challenge of "Silent Saturday" is that we often view the silence from an earthly context, but that is never the full picture. There is always an earthly and cosmic reality to everything. It's a pattern as old as creation. In Eden, there was an earthly rebellion (Adam and Eve) and there was also a supernatural rebellion (the Serpent or Nachash). From an earthly perspective, there was silence, but from a supernatural perspective, the Gospel was being proclaimed...in the underworld by Jesus! (1 Peter 3:18–19, CSB)

The Afterlife in Biblical Understanding

Follow me with this.

First, death in its most simple form is separation from God. How this happens is the human soul is separated from the body. The body decays while the soul goes to what the OT calls "Sheol." In the Old Testament, Sheol is the place where ALL souls go, both righteous (Jacob in Genesis 37:35 and Samuel in 1 Samuel 28:13-14) and wicked (Psalm 31:17)—but they end up in different locations.

The New Testament picks up on this and refers to the Hebrew "Sheol" in Greek as "Hades." So, in Luke 16:19-31, the "depths of Hades" would be where the wicked suffer. However, "Abraham's bosom" is the location of the righteous as they wait in peace for the Messiah (Luke 16:22). In fact, the righteous dead anticipated a time when they would be rescued by the Messiah from Sheol (Psalm 49:15, 89:48).

Jesus's Promise to the Thief

So, when Jesus tells the thief on the cross that he will be with him in "paradise," He is referring to being with the thief in "Abraham's bosom" because the thief has repented and therefore is rescued from the "depths of Hades." At this point in human history, the implications of the OT would still be active, and therefore Jesus journeys to the underworld/Hades on an epic rescue mission.

The dead righteous, though they are not being tormented, are being contained by the power and restriction of Hades (Abraham's bosom). So, Jesus first rescues the dead righteous from the grips of sin and death (Hades).

Jesus is CONQUERING AND RESCUING THE RIGHTEOUS (IN THE OT) FROM THE GRIPS OF DEATH (Psalm 49:15; 86:13; 89:48).

The Great Rescue Mission

On Silent Saturday, Jesus was literally disarming death through death, robbing the grave, and setting its captives free. In fact, while Jesus is doing all of this, there are some rebellious angels (sons of God of Genesis 6) that are imprisoned in the Depths of Hades (2 Peter 2:4) that witness all of this unfold. They hear the Gospel and they watch the victory of Christ, the Son of God, unfolding throughout human history. The captives of death, the righteous dead of the OT, are paraded in front of these rebellious angels in a victory march led by Jesus!

What Jesus does is disarm the powers of death and rip off the gates of Hades and gather up the righteous dead to Himself (Ephesians 4:7-10) and bring them up to the heavenly realm with Him (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). This brings to light Matthew 27:51-53 where the saints who had fallen asleep rose and went into the city appearing to many.

The Truth About Silent Saturday

So, what seemed like silence on Saturday in an earthly context was anything but silent in a spiritual and cosmic context.

• Jesus was proclaiming the GOSPEL.

• Jesus was robbing the graveyard of death.

• Jesus was setting the captives free.

• Jesus is victorious.

Our Hope Today

This means today, for you and me, when we die our place is next to Christ who ascended on high and sits at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 12).

It is the victory of Christ that gives us full assurance and confidence that the pain, heartache, suffering, and torment of this world due to sin is not the full story. Jesus is victorious, and when He returns, He will make all things right. In the meantime, we pray that our eyes will be opened to the cosmic reality of Christ's victory that we live in today.

But I Have More Questions….

I’m sure you have a lot more questions. That’s why I created a more in-depth theology essay PDF that goes into all of this in more detail, exclusive to paid subscribers. Upgrade your subscription to get it!