Christ was not just a soul with a body, nor are we. Our bodies will be transformed and resurrected, so though they are mortal, they will be transformed. Also, Jesus was fully man, not just God with a body.
We are all bodies with souls, and though we may have glorified bodies when Christ returns and
the world ends. But until that time if your great aunt fanny dies her body rots in the ground and provides food for worms. In the mean time her soul is in heaven, thus seperated from her physical and mortal self. So what you say may be accurate, but only if time has come to an end. In the mean time, it works the way I said it. Now, for Christ to be fully man AND fully God he had to have divine nature. But we also know that he has always existed, much like God. Therefore his divine nature could not be in his body or mortal self, due to the fact that his body was born and aged and bleed like ours. Therefore his divinity had to exist as his soul, there is (to put it rather straight forward) no where else to put it.
1 Corinthians 15:44
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.
Also consider what the phrase "fully man" means. All of us exist with dual natures, which paul talkes about EXTENSIVELY in Romans. We have a will to do good and a will to do evil, with the duality of the two causing us to inherit the "human condition", which in itself is rather a paradox.
ROMANS 7:21-24
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
The imagery of the Body of Death is a strong one. This was the name for a type of torture and execution that the romans used, in that a dead body was strapped to you and as it decomposed it poisoned you with toxins until you succame to death. Thus, the sin nature that we inherit works in much the same way, poisoning us as we try to do good.
2. The part about descending into paradise is hotly contested within the church. I personally do not agree with this. The passage you are thinking of (in 2 Peter) uses the word "proclamation," not the word for preaching the gospel. So those who do think he did this often say he declared his victory in Paradise but did not preach the gospel. Another interpretation of this is that when Noah preached, it was with the Spirit of Christ, i.e., the HS.
Frankly, I dont give a hoot who contests what. Regardless of general opinion I am a seeker of truth, not of opinion. In Luke 16:19–31 Christ HIMSELF speakes of Hades and of the Bosom of Abraham where the faithfull wait until their sins can be forgiven. Now read this closely please, I am going to try to pack a afternoons conversation of theology into a few short points.
1) There no salvation through the law, only condemnation. For more on this, read Hebrews.
2) The purpose of sacrifice in the OT was essentially a band-aid for sin. the wages of sin is death, and innocent blood must be paid to help cover the sin, which is the prupose of killing an innocent animal for things that you have done wrong. It had to be undertood that blood was the payment for sin and that an innocent must die for your actions. Though they did not realize it, God was preparing the Jews for the true salvation through blood and innocent death that Christ would provide.
3) If Christ had not yet died, and in doing so facilitated forgivness of sin, what then did the righteous do? No need to wonder, as Christ spells out in John 16 they waited in tarturus but essentially in what the greeks would call elysium, a place for righteous people that was seperated from the rest of hell. This had to happen, because without a forgiveness of sins these people were still guilty and deserved to be judged. But as Paul spells out in Romans, God withheld his judgment until his covenant could be fulfilled.
4) Thus being the case, when Christ tells the thief on the the cross "Truly I say that you will be with me today in paradise" what was he talking about? Heaven? So Christ died and then went to heaven? I dont think so. He desceneded into hell because at the time of his death he was the most sinful man on earth. Why? because he took on upon himself ALL of the sins of the world, for all time past and present, and he paid the penalty for them. God forsook Christ on the cross for this reason, promting the most aganizing aspect of Christs entire ordeal. His seperation from God, prompting his cry of "father, father. Why have you forsaken me?
5) So, in the end (as tends to happen within the Christian faith) the splitting hairs over what Christ did in paradise is pointless. What matters is that those who were
"justified in faith" recieved the promise that God had made them and were able to gain salvation. But I will say this. Salvation for us is a gift that must be accepted, it cannot be proclaimed at us. Why would it be any different for those awaiting Christ?
3. There is no scriptural support that Jesus took anything from Satan, much less keys. Satan never had keys to anything. This is a Word Faith teaching and it's a false one
I said this in a rhetorical way, I was not quoting scripture. Those awaiting Christs death in paradise WERE captives to Sin, and satan has been given power over those who sin. Therefore by overcoming Sin, Christ set free not only the living who were captive to sin, but also the righteous dead. There is obviously not an actual big golden key that Christ went and swiped from the devil. And I take offense to being thrown in with the word of faith crowd.
