Today has traditionally been referred to as “Holy Saturday,” the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We all know what happened to Jesus’s body after he died. For the remainder of Good Friday and all of Holy Saturday, it was laid in a borrowed tomb, where it kept Sabbath for a brief time before being raised on Easter Sunday.
But as with all other human beings, there was more to Jesus than just his body. What about his soul (or spirit)? It was clearly no longer “in” Jesus’s body—since death by definition involves the soul being absent from the body (James 2:26). So where did it go—where did he go after he died?
This is an often overlooked aspect of Jesus’s work. Partly for good reason, since the Bible doesn’t spill a lot of ink on it. Still, it spills a little. And since everything Jesus did ought to thrill us, let’s consider where Jesus was and what he was doing beginning on Good Friday afternoon and throughout Holy Saturday.
From Jesus’s Own Lips
Thankfully, we don’t have to wonder what happened to Jesus’s spirit after he died. He explicitly addresses this question in two of his seven sayings on the cross. His words “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” tell us he went to be with his Father (Luke 23:46). Moreover, his words to the dying thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” tell us plainly where he was going (v. 43).
The word “paradise” occurs only two other times in the New Testament, once as a reference to the third heaven where Paul was caught up (2 Cor. 12:2–3) and once as a reference to the eternal city where we’ll eat from the Tree of Life (Rev. 2:7; cf. 22:2). But the idea of paradise is more common than the word itself.
For example, Jesus is almost certainly referring to “paradise” in Luke 16:22 when he speaks of the righteous dead going to “Abraham’s side” (or “bosom”). Genesis 25:8 tells us that when Abraham died, he was “gathered to his people,” which at that point would’ve included people like Abel, Noah, Sarah, and (presumably) Enoch (Heb. 11:4–7, 11). Isaac and Jacob and a great cloud of witnesses would later join him there (Gen. 35:29; 49:33; Deut. 32:50).
So paradise (or Abraham’s side) was the place where the spirits of the righteous went after death to be with the Father. Just as Lazarus died and was carried there by the angels, so Jesus was carried there on Good Friday and remained there on Holy Saturday.
Long-Awaited Day
Imagine what a day that must’ve been for the citizens of paradise. It’s not as if they were bad off before he got there—Abraham’s side was clearly a place of rest, infinitely to be preferred to the flames of torment. Abraham and company had lived on happily in the hope that Christ would come and pay for the salvation they were already enjoying on credit. They trusted he would one day destroy death and ransom them fully from Sheol. That’s the salvation they already had.
And yet, consider what they didn’t have. They didn’t yet have the Messiah in their nature. That was true not only while they lived but also after they died. Even in paradise, they didn’t yet enjoy the presence of the human Christ—because he wasn’t yet human. He had no human body that could die on a cross and no human soul to be disembodied from it. Consequently, they had never yet met him in that form.
But all that changed on Good Friday afternoon. Because when Jesus took his final breath, their waiting was finally over. And their eyes saw for the first time the one they’d been longing to see: the Son of God clothed in a human soul, having left his body on the cross where he just crushed Satan’s head.
When Jesus took his final breath, their waiting was finally over.
I can see him walking over to the gatekeeper and saying “I’ll take those” as he grabs the keys of Death and Hades (Rev. 1:18). I can hear him proclaiming victory over Satan’s host, serving them notice that their power was broken and their days were numbered (1 Pet. 3:18–22). I can hear him comforting his people, saying, “Be of good cheer, friends. This is only the beginning. Because come Sunday, I’m busting out of here. Some of you are coming with me right away (Matt. 27:52–53); all of you are coming with me eventually. So take a good look at me, brothers and sisters—because the next time you see me, I won’t be dead anymore. Soon, you’ll have me in your midst forever as the resurrected King—a standing reminder of what’s coming next for all of you the next time I descend.”
Paradise 2.0
Was the afterlife good for Old Testament saints before Jesus died? Yes. It was literally paradise. But it got better on Holy Saturday. So much better that we hardly ever talk about dying and going to Abraham’s bosom, because Abraham has long been overshadowed. Instead, we speak of departing to be with Christ, which is far better (Phil. 1:23). First, he was with them spiritually during his descent, and then fully after his resurrection and ascension. If we die in faith tomorrow, he’ll be there waiting for us.
Were the saints in paradise happy before Jesus got there? Yes. But not as happy as they are now, and not as happy as they will be. In one sense, you could even say new covenant saints in heaven right now aren’t yet as redeemed as they will be—because even they, as happy as they are, still wait for their full adoption as sons, the redemption of their bodies (Rom. 8:23; cf. Rev. 6:9–11).
If we die in faith tomorrow, Jesus will be there waiting for us.
But it’s coming soon. According to the book of Revelation, paradise is coming back to earth with Jesus (2:7; 21:1–2). And this time, he won’t be surrounded by departed spirits but by fully redeemed sons of God. Death and Hades will give up their dead (20:13), and those he has ransomed will join that dying thief and be with him forever in paradise. So as we observe Holy Saturday, let this day remind you of that day.