Where Did the Righteous Go Upon Death Before Jesus?

This is an issue that has come up in several conversations recently. People keep asserting that they, i. e., Old Testament saints, went to someplace called "Abraham's Bosom," a phrase that occurs nowhere in the Old Testament, and only once in the New. You may recall that Jesus tells the story (Luke 16:19-31) of Lazarus and the Rich Man (traditionally nicknamed "Dives"). Dives went to Hell, but Lazarus went to Abraham's Bosom. The burden of proof is on those who want to claim that it is not an epithet for Heaven. So far, I have been given lots of insistence, but zero evidence.

Behind this evangelical version of Limbo is an assumption that the atonement in Jesus's blood could not have applied before it occurred in history. Why not? Don't we do anything analogous? When I sit down to eat at a restaurant, I receive my meal in expectation of the money I will pay for it after I eat it. A person gets to move into an apartment in the expectation of the rent he will pay later, not that he has already paid! That is the significance of the Revelation 13:8: "All who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." The elect are written in the book of life in anticipation of the blood that will be shed for our redemption.

There is the answer to the question of the spiritual status of the godly down through history before the physical appearing of Jesus in Bethlehem. We were chosen, with the expectation of the blood atonement that would be applied at a later historical point (John 6:39). Therefore, the Old Testament saints were saved in no way different from us in the New Testament era (Acts 15:11). Why, then, should those saints require a different spiritual home from that which we will enjoy? There is no reason for such an assertion.

We also have more-explicit information on the subject. Most people know the story of Elijah, who was transported away without ever undergoing physical death. Where did he go? The text tells us: "As they [i. e., Elijah and Elisha] still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

There is no Limbo. There is no Limbo-substitute called "Abraham's Bosom." There are, and have only ever been, Heaven and Hell.