If anyone alive today would know what Jesus experienced while He was in hell, it would be Bill Wiese.
The author of the book “23 Minutes in Hell” says he experienced the horrors of hell for a brief period in November 1998, where he saw searing flames, heard deafening screams of agony and encountered terrorizing demons before the strong hand of God lifted him out of the pit.
Many, including Christians, believe that Jesus went into the same pit of torment when He took His last breath on the cross and remained there until He was resurrected on Easter morning.
But according to the Bible, Wiese says, that’s not what happened.
“There are five verses that give us an indication of what He did and where He went,” Wiese says. “First of all, in Luke 23:46, when he was just about to die, he said, ‘Father into thy hands, I commend my spirit.’ Commend means to the care and keeping of. So, number one, his spirit was in the hands of God. Number two, he said in Luke 23:43 to the thief on the cross, ‘I say unto you, today, you will be with Me in Paradise.’ So, he just let us know that he was going to Paradise, not the torment side of hell.”
Wiese says at that time, hell was separated by as great gulf, a chasm, as found in Luke 16:22-26. On one side there was the torment of hell, and on the other side there was Abraham’s Bosom, which blueletterbible.org describes as:
“Abraham’s side, or bosom, is also thought to be the specific place where only the righteous dead lived. It is not to be equated with the general idea of death or the general realm of the dead, Hades or Sheol. When someone was in Abraham’s Bosom they were with the righteous dead, not in the general population of the dead. It is argued that Hades is only connected with the rich man while Lazarus is afar off in the another place—a compartment in Hades for the righteous.”
Many people, including many believers, are not familiar with Abraham’s Bosom, Wiese says.
“As Luke 16 explains, there was this torment side that the rich man was in thirsting,” Weise says. “He wanted a drop of water; he was in flames. And he wanted to cross over to the other side, or have Lazarus crossover to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool his tongue. But he said, ‘You cannot cross over from one side to the other, it was separated by a great gulf, which means a gorge in the earth.’
“So, hell had two compartments, the torment side and the paradise side or Abraham’s Bosom. Right, I’ve heard that. Right, so that Jesus went to the paradise side, Abraham’s Bosom, and He just said that to the thief, today, you’ll be with Me in paradise. And then 10 times in the book of John from chapter 13, to 17, when He was getting ready to leave, He said to the apostles, I’m getting ready to depart. And I’m going to the Father, and but I’ll be back. So He let us know that He was going to the Father into His spirit into His hands to commit, He was going to Abraham’s Bosom. So, that’s those two verses, and most commentaries all support this.
Wiese then pointed to Ephesians 4:8, which reads, “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.”
“Some take that the mean that He led the captives that are in Abraham’s Bosom out and took them to heaven. But most of the commentaries don’t agree with that. They say that He, and I’ll just read this, this is from the Vines Expository Dictionary, there was a a forceful expression for Christ’s victory through His death over the hostile powers of darkness. So, most of the commentaries say that the ‘captivity captive’ was He was leading a procession of Satan and his demons, and proclaim victory over the devil with His completed work. So that’s what they say that verse means I don’t know for certain what it means it could go that way. Or it could go that He was leading the people out of Abraham’s Bosom into heaven.”
The next verse Wiese indicated was Matthew 27:52-53, which reads, “The graves also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had died were raised, and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the Holy City and appeared to many.”
“So he did take them out, and he took them to heaven, because prior to his death, man had to go to Abraham’s Bosom because our sin wasn’t washed away, it was covered,” Wiese said. “So, man had to be covered down deep in yours, in a place of comfort, Abraham’s Bosom.”
In essence, while on the Abraham’s Bosom side of hell, Jesus preached those before Him who had died but were not covered by His blood because He had yet to be crucified.
For the rest of Wiese’s explanation of this phenomenal event, watch this video.
Wiese continues to compel unbelievers to listen and heed to the gospel of Jesus Christ to avoid the horrors of hell. Make no mistake, he says, it’s real and it’s inevitable if you don’t repent and accept Jesus as your savior.
“You know, the misconception is that most people think you know, ‘I’m pretty good,'” he says. “If God’s good, then I would go to heaven. But you have to understand that none of us are good. There is not one good person compared to God’s standard of good. … So, we are all fallen, and have a sinful nature about us, we have to have a new nature given to us and we can’t earn it or work for it.
“And Revelation 20:15 says, ‘whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.’ God actually has a book and He’s going to look to see if our names are in His book. And the only way we get our names in that book is if we repent and say, ‘Lord, I can’t save myself, I’m not a good person. But I believe You died in my place for my sin, you paid penalty for my sin in my place. And I repent, if that means that I’m sorry for my sin, and I’m going to turn away from a sinful lifestyle. And I’m going to agree to follow Jesus.'”
Will you make that decision today? {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
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