When did heaven actually open up?

[ElCid]

Hello, where can I find in the bible that men were barred from entering heaven pending the ascencion of our Lord Jesus Christ. If so, how come prophets like Enoch and Elijah seemed to have been assumed into heaven even before the ascencion of Christ ever happened?

 

[Steven_Merten]

Hello, where can I find in the bible that men were barred from entering heaven pending the ascencion of our Lord Jesus Christ. If so, how come prophets like Enoch and Elijah seemed to have been assumed into heaven even before the ascencion of Christ ever happened?

Hello ElCid,

Before Jesus’ death and ressurection, Jesus tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not dead waiting to rise but “LIVE” in heaven. How can this be? Christ had not yet died.

God exists outside of physical time. God can look at the whole of physical time (which He created) as a human looks at a three inch piece of yarn. When one is begotten of God into the spiritual world, they too will live outside of physical time. Though Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must pass through Christ death and ressurrect to go to heaven, once they are begotten of God they too exist outside of physical time from before creation to beyond the end of time, in eternal life.

Never underestimate the power of God.

Please visit Creation

NAB MAR 12:18
Then some **Sadducees who hold there is no resurrection **came to him with a question …\…12:24 Jesus said: “You are badly misled, because you fail to understand the Scriptures or the power of God. When people rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but live like angels in heaven. As to the raising of the dead, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob’? He is the God of the living not of the dead, You are very much mistaken.” **NAB LUK 20:37 **

Moses in the passage about the bush showed that the dead rise again when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive for him.

 

[ricko]

When Christ died.

“[H]e went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (1 Pet. 3:18-20).

The prison is purgatory. He preached the good news that sins could now be forgiven and the gates of heaven were now opened.

 

[mdgspencer]

In the creed we say that Christ descended into hell. In the original Latin and Greek the word simply referred the place of the dead, in one part of which the just who lived before Christ lived in natural happiness without being in heaven. Christ went there and preached to the just after his crucifixion, according to the traditional Catholic teaching. Only then could people enter heaven.
Saint Thomas Aquinas thought that people like Enoch and Elijah went to a place of happiness that was not heaven. But beyond that he didn’t say, and I would think that the geography of the afterlife is something that we dimly understand.

When Christ died.

“[H]e went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (1 Pet. 3:18-20).

The prison is purgatory. He preached the good news that sins could now be forgiven and the gates of heaven were now opened.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

During the OT, it was believed that the dead where in two compartments in the grave ( luke 16 ). Yes, Enoch, Elijah and maybe Moses were taken to heaven, they did not ascend under their own power. When Jesus ascended to heaven after the resurrection, he opened heaven and moved paradise to heaven, Paul in II Cor 12 was caught up to paradise. So, heaven was offically opened up at the ascension after Jesus resurrection, but a few were allowed in before the grand opening. Those referred to as being alive were in the paradise side of the grave.

1 Peter 3:19
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

1 Peter 4:6
For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Ephesians 4:7-13

7But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

8Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

9(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

10He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

11And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

 

[ElCid]

During the OT, it was believed that the dead where in two compartments in the grave ( luke 16 ). Yes, Enoch, Elijah and maybe Moses were taken to heaven, they did not ascend under their own power. When Jesus ascended to heaven after the resurrection, he opened heaven and moved paradise to heaven, Paul in II Cor 12 was caught up to paradise. So, heaven was offically opened up at the ascension after Jesus resurrection, but a few were allowed in before the grand opening. Those referred to as being alive were in the paradise side of the grave.

1 Peter 3:19
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

1 Peter 4:6
For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Ephesians 4:7-13

7But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

8Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

9(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

10He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

11And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

You never fail to amaze me with your answers. May God continue to bless you with wisdom.