Secrets from Beyond The Grave

it was necessary that He ascend into the heavenly temple to purify the heavenly articles in the heavenly temple with His own blood. This was necessary because in ages past Lucifer led a rebellion in heaven, and the presence of sin had defiled the very temple in the heavens. Each year during the Day of Atonement, at Moses's tabernacle and later at Solomon's temple in Jerusalem, the high priest would take the blood of an ox, a goat, and a lamb, sprinkling the blood on the sacred furniture in a symbolical act of expediting sin and providing access to God. The same pattern was necessary for the sacred furniture that rests in the temple of God in heaven. Thus, it is recorded in Hebrews: Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. --Hebrews 9:23-24 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. --Hebrews 9:11-12 This act of preparing the heavenly temple was not just to purify the temple from the rebellion of Lucifer and his angels (Isa. 14:12-15), but it was also for the purpose of allowing the souls and spirits of the righteous to have a new resting place separated from the Sheol compartments under the earth. These souls who had been confined from the time of Adam's death to the Crucifixion (about thirty-five hundred years) were not given direct access to appear in heaven following their death until the purification by the blood of Christ and the sealing of the plan of redemption. Matthew revealed that many "saints who had fallen asleep were raised" (Matt. 27:52). When did these resurrected saints ascend into heaven? While there is no scriptural indication as to when these firstfruit saints were presented in heaven, some suggest, based upon the firstfruits pattern, that when Christ departed from Mary and ascended to heaven, He took these saints with Him as the visible firstfruits of the dead. Others observe a particular phrase when Christ ascended forty days after His resurrection from the Mount of Olives. We read: Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. --Acts 1:9 We assume that this cloud that received Him out of their sight was a normal, visible, white cloud that we see on any cloudy day. However, the same Greek word is used in the following passage: Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. --Hebrews 12:1