Wonder of Heaven and when it was opened

[newby]

In thinking about the Feast of the Transfiguration which was celebrated yesterday, where were Moses and Elijah coming from when they appeared speaking to Jesus on Mount Tabor. The Gospel of Matthew and Mark talk about them but not where they came from. Luke says they were shown in glory, which I understand means a glorified body which would mean heaven. However Heaven was not opened until after Jesus’ death. I believe that as is said in the Apostles Creed…“he decended into hell (meaning the dead)” was where all those who were destined for Heaven were until Jesus went there to take them to heaven. Just wondered what you all think out there about this.

Bless you all,

Newby

 

[Steven_Merten]

newby:

In thinking about the Feast of the Transfiguration which was celebrated yesterday, where were Moses and Elijah coming from when they appeared speaking to Jesus on Mount Tabor. The Gospel of Matthew and Mark talk about them but not where they came from. Luke says they were shown in glory, which I understand means a glorified body which would mean heaven. However Heaven was not opened until after Jesus’ death. I believe that as is said in the Apostles Creed…“he decended into hell (meaning the dead)” was where all those who were destined for Heaven were until Jesus went there to take them to heaven. Just wondered what you all think out there about this.

Bless you all,

Newby

Hello Newby,

During His physical life, before His death, Jesus tells us that Abraham, Issaac and Jacob are not dead waiting to rise but alive. As you describe, we know that the only way for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, or anyone, to be in heaven is through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore it only seems logical that Jesus is describing the tremendous Power of our spiritual God who is not bound by physical time.

Physical time is the measure of change between matter energy and empty space, all of which God brought into existance upon creation. God and spiritual beings are not bound by physical time. When Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses were begotten of God into spiritual eternal life, after Jesus death and ressurection, they too now also share in an “eternal” existance in spiritual omni-presence to the whole of physical time. When one takes the limits of physical time away from spiritual existance one can see how Moses could have came down from heaven and appeared on earth before Jesus’ death and ressurection.

Please visit Jesus Loves God

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.

 

[Todd_Easton]

newby:

Luke says they were shown in glory, which I understand means a glorified body which would mean heaven. However Heaven was not opened until after Jesus’ death.

Here’s my :twocents: …

I am pretty sure that the Church teaches that the souls of those who died in God’s friendship before Jesus’ death were in a state of happiness called Paradise, Abraham’s bosom, or Limbo of the Fathers. (see Luke 23:42, 16:19-31)

Of course, Elijah never died but was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot and is probably still in his natural body, as he is commonly thought to be one of the two witnesses near the end of the world who will be put to death, resurrected, and assumed bodily into heaven. (Revelation 11:3-12) (The other witness is commonly thought to be Enoch, whom God took in Genesis 5:24.) So, if Elijah appeared at the Transfiguration, it would probably been in his natural body. But natural bodies can radiate with heavenly splendor or glory, as did the face of Moses for a time after he received the ten commandments. (Exodus 34:29; 2 Corinthians 3:7, 13)

Moses died and was buried. I don’t think the Church has ever taught Moses was later resurrected after his death and assumed bodily into heaven (or rather Abraham’s bosom), though there is an obscure reference to the body of Moses in Jude 1:9… So, if Moses appeared at the Transfiguration it was probably not in his true natural body which as far as we know is still buried somewhere nor in that same natural body, resurrected and glorified which he will have at the end of the world but probably a temporary body similar to those taken by angels when they appear in human form, which sometimes appear with heavenly splendor. (Luke 2:9)

In Bishop Frederick Justus Knecht’s* A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture*, 2003 TAN Books reprint of the 1923 edition, p. 542, footnote 4, on Moses and Elias, it says in part: Elias [Elijah], who had been translated from this world without tasting of death, … appeared in his own body, while the soul of Moses assumed a body, such as the angels assume when they appear visibly.

In the same work, p. 278, footnote 8, it says:To heaven. Or rather heavenwards. He [Elijah] could not be taken into heaven. Like Henoch [Enoch], he was translated without tasting death, and was taken to a mysterious abode of peace and consolation. Before our Lord’s second coming to judge the world, Elias [Elijah] will come again to this earth to preach penance (Mark 17:11).

 

[TOME]

First, I think we should remember that we who are finite are trying to grasp the infinite, something we will never fully understand (but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop trying).

Matthew’s Gospel seems to have been written for believers who where jewish converts to Christianity. Matthew’s many refrences to Jesus as the fulfillment of the Jewish hope of the Messiah. That is why, in my opinion, the focus shouldn’t be on when the gates were opened.

Rather, I belive the message of Matthew was that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets as personalized in the appearence of Moses (The Law) and Elijah (Prophet who did not die but was to return at the end of time. This is why we find in the Gospels, many believing John the Baptist was Elijah returned).Remember, Jesus himself proclaimed he was not here to do away with the Law nor the prophets, but was their fulfilment.

Finally, as to when Heaven was opened, I think the answer lies in Matthew 27: 51 - 53.