Molly, do you think before Jesus was resurrected that the righteous went on to heaven when they died?
If they did, why did Jesus call Lazarus to come forth out of the tomb? Why didn't Jesus call him down from above? What is your thinking on this?
CHB
I don't really think about it much because it doesn't concern me. We are in a new covenant.
But, off the top of my head, I think a very few went to heaven to be with Christ [Enoch comes to mind, God took him].
If we look at the story of the ghost of Samuel being raised by the witch of endor, she does not call him down from heaven but calls him up from Sheol.
1 Sam 28:11 Then said the woman, Whom shall I
bring up unto thee? And he said,
Bring me up Samuel.
1 Sam 28:15 And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me,
to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.
So I think most were in the place of the dead. But I believe that NOW all the OT saints are in heaven with Christ.
40God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. [Heb 11]
