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Our Lord Jesus Christ was victorious over Satan withstanding the temptation of sin all His life. Sin was the first enemy of God and He conquered that and took it into captivity, but the other enemies of God remained – Hell and Death. Until Christ’s sacrifice when He made available the new place called Paradise, the destination for all souls (except those under the Golden Altar who had sacrificed their life for their faith and were martyred) was Hell or Sheol which, although meaning a place of waiting for judgement, is often wrongly depicted as a place of torment. This then had to be taken captive.

Jesus, after He had told His disciples that He would have to leave them, John 13:31-33 “Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come”; but in words of comfort He continued in John 14:1-3 “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where l am, there ye may be also.”

After Jesus’ crucifixion and death on the cross, and after He said to the malefactor crucified beside Him that – Luke 23:43 “And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”, from that time forward, believing Christians and all those that acknowledged Jesus as the only begotten Son of God and prepared through His grace and righteousness, now had no fear at the death of the body.

Jesus would suffer the death of His natural body but was able to enter into Hell, and Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:6 “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.”

Jesus would then rise from the grave in bodily form completing His victory. Apostle John would record that Jesus said to him in Revelation 1:18 “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen: and have the keys of hell and of death.” Death was now also captive.

What a great blessing and comfort Christ has given us, that we should have no fear or dread at the death of this earthly body we have today but have His reassurance that we will all have a place in the Kingdom of God and with Him when He returns and then Eternal Life.