55. Martyrs Are Kept Waiting

Christ In Prison

When the penitent thief, on the cross, asked Christ to remember him, Christ said, Today you will be with me in Paradise. Luke 23:43.  By common usage, neither the Jews nor the Greeks of Christ’s time would have understood Christ to have meant heaven.  

The Bible says that immediately after His death, Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison (Hades).  For Christ also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, indeed being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit; in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison. 1 Peter 3:18-19.

For to this end the gospel was preached also to the dead. 1 Peter 4:6.  Both of these Bible verses tell us that souls do not go to heaven as soon as they leave their bodies.  So, if Christ spent some time in the underworld (in prison), how could the penitent thief have joined him that day in heaven?  

Christ, himself, did not go to heaven until just before Pentecost, and that was after He had preached to the souls in prison.  

If all the people that die go to their eternal reward immediately, to whom was Christ preaching in prison?

This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes on Him should have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:40.  Christ, very clearly says that those that His Father has given to Him will be raised up at the last day and not at the time that they die.  

Oh, how the churches love to comfort their people, and they do it at the expense of honesty.

The Martyrs for Christ

these men of faith, though they trusted God and won his approval, none of them received all that God had promised them; for God wanted them to wait and share the even better rewards that were prepared for us. Heb. 11:39-40 TLB. The author of Hebrews is writing about the great men of the Old Testament; men like Abraham, Moses, Joshua and many others, and he tells us that they have not yet received the better rewards, they will have to wait till we get there.

I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain … and they cried…How long, O Lord… until You judge and avenge our blood…and it was said to them that they should rest a little longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. The Rev. 6:9-11.

These martyrs are obviously not in heaven; they are waiting for their resurrection.  As souls in prison, they are praying, how much longer do we have to wait.  If the martyrs need to wait in the intermediate state, how much more those of us who probably would not become martyrs even if we were given the chance.  No, they were told to wait until the last martyr had been slain before they would be resurrected.

Then I saw thrones; those who sat on them were entrusted with judgement … They came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over. This is the first resurrection. The Rev. 20:4-5.  

Saint John is clearly telling us that those who rule with Christ for one thousand years were partakers of the first resurrection which happens before the thousand year reign of peace starts.  He does not say they went to heaven as soon as they were martyred but rather that all the martyrs were raised at the same time in the same resurrection; the first resurrection.  

They did not go to heaven when they died.

Next I saw a large white throne and the one who was sitting on it. … I saw the dead, ... standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. … The dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was written in the scrolls. The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire. (This pool of fire is the second death). The Rev.20:11-14 TAB.

These verses, once and for all, clinch the matter against the argument that you go to heaven when you die.  The futuristic scene is set for the final judgment; the Judge is sitting on the throne and those who had been dead, stand before the throne waiting for their judgment; according to what they had done in their life.  

Then John tells us who the ones are that are standing there.  He said those that had died at sea and those that had been buried in graves were judged.  The dead had been raised to be judged, and because death and the grave were finally empty, those two "items" could finally be thrown into the lake of fire. 

It is worth noticing that no person is rewarded or sent to punishment before they are judged and the judgement does not happen until after the thousand years of peace on earth; whether or not those are literally one thousand years seems immaterial.  Therefore, all people who die (except martyrs) stay in Paradise or Hades until the second resurrection. Martyrs constitute the first resurrection.

In 20:5 Saint John ties it all together with these words; the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over.  With these words so clearly stated, where did the church ever get the idea that we go to heaven as soon as we die?  

If we were to go to heaven at death we would not even need to face the judgement seat of Christ; the book of Hebrews plainly says, it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. Heb. 9:27. 

If we were to go to heaven at death we would be there before the book of judgement was opened and that would mean that the keeping of the records, in heaven, had been futile. 

It is interesting to note the warning sounded by Justin Martyr about 150 AD: 

“For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christian, but ... who say ... their souls when they die are taken to heaven: Do not imagine that they are Christians” (Dialogue with Trypho) The Coming Kingdom of the Messiah by Sir Anthony F. Buzzard.