What happened to the souls of people who lived before Jesus?

Question

Christians believe that Jesus died so we could enter the kingdom of heaven. What happened to the millions of people who lived and died BEFORE he did?

Its just it seems a bit unfair for them to go to hell, or a second class heaven, it wasnt their fault they were born when they were!

Answer 1

it is by faith that a person is saved in old and new testament. from Adam and Eve till now God has had different Covenants with people. the first was a simple faith covenant just believing in Him. The second was the law and blood covenant . which need faith and obedience to receive Gods gift. that is when people where introduced to the idea of blood as forgiveness of sin.though you could use the blood as a sacrifice without faith you can not please God. both of these covenats were just pointing toward the perfect covenant with Jesus.

also in the story of the burning bush. God said I am the God of Abraham , Issac and Jacob. if the were not in heaven God would have said He was the .... .because they are still being He refered to them in present tense not past. so every one is judged on the faith of God.

Answer 2

This question is especially intriguiging because if you seek an answer from 50 different Christians, you will most likely get 50 different answers.

As someone inclined not to believe in life after death, or concept of "soul", the question is irrelevant to me. My answer would be that the same thing happens to everyone when their bodies cease to function. They die.

Before anyone gets depressed by this simple concept, please keep in mind that what you do here on this earth matters. Your life has meaning and you can find it in loving, teaching others, and doing for others. If you want to leave a legacy here, start with selflessness and love...in the interim, you will find true joy.

You don't need a Jesus or a god to believe that is true, whether there is an afterlife or not.

Answer 3

This is a good question, and it is asked very often by sincere seekers of truth.

According to the Bible, Jesus died for ALL sin, and God has a plan for those people who lived prior to Jesus, for He loves them as much as He loves you or me.

Well, neither I nor you really know if the people in the old testament will go to hell, but we ought to rather focus on ourselves, here, now, and accept God's gift, because many people refuse to follow the Bible's plan for salvation because they have a mother or father or someone else that they loved who died without being 'saved'. By accepting Jesus as God's sacrifice, and fulfilling the salvation plan, they would be admitting that their loved one 'died in their sins' and are lost, so they refuse to repent of their sins, be baptized in the name of Jesus, etc.

I have a belief, and I want to say that this is only my opinion, I don't have scripture to back it up, but I think there will be many people lost on the day of judgment who's names will not be in the book of life, and their excuse for not accepting Jesus will be for the reason stated above, only to find out that the so called 'lost' relative was actually saved at some point, and made it.

Oh, the irony.

Answer 4

John 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
Despite all the answers that you received, it seems that Jesus said that no man had ascended prior to his work upon the cross, after all how could they as their sins had yet been forgiven. The bible states that the blood of goats and sheep forgave no one.
So where were they?
The reference to Luke 16:19-31 is a good one. After Jesus died on the cross he did lead captivity captive. Eph 4:8
This is understood to mean that the old testament saints did go to Sheol [hades] when they died awaiting the work of Christ on the cross. He then took them from Sheol to heaven where they now wait for the return of Christ to earth.
God knows the beginning from the end Trust Him and BELIEVE

Answer 5

Jesus died so that we can have a personal relationship with the father. We don't have to go to the high priest because he is the high priest, we don't have to sacrifice a perfect animal because he was a sacrificial lamb that was without any blemishes. The people before Christ that really believed in the father went to heaven. Remember the Most High God know your heart. He looks at the hearts and not the deeds.

Answer 6

They went to Hell. Only two people made it into heaven (Joshua and somebody else, I forget who. Even Moses went to Hell) The Jews don't believe in Hell, they believe in She'ol, which means "the grave" last I checked. To me, this means those who are to be rewarded go to heaven, the others just cease to exist (no eternal suffering, not making it into heaven is suffering enough, something like that) When Jesus died, the first place he went to was Hell, he didn't ascend to Heaven, he descended to Hell.

Here he broke the chains that bound the good souls and brought them up to heaven.

Answer 7

Once a person accepts Christ in their hearts, the are going to Heaven. Otherwise a person is going to hell. Those who lived before Jesus had to perform a ceremony where an animal is sacrificed in accordance to the rules perscribed at the time.

Answer 8

There were 'two' parts of hell. The side for sinners and non-sinners. They were separated of course. They could see each other but not touch. (It's in the N.T.) When Christ died on the cross; He went into Hell and took the keys from Satan and took their souls of the non-sinners with Him to Heaven. There are a few examples of where people went right to heaven before Christ came...only a few though.

Answer 9

They were in some spiritual state similar to purgatory, from which they were freed following Jesus' Resurrection.

One of the New Testament letters (I forget which one) tells us that after His death and before His Resurrection, Jesus went to "preach to the spirits in prison."

Presumably this "prison" was for the souls of the righteous people who had lived and died before Him.

This prison could not have been Heaven (Jesus didn't need to preach to people there) or Hell (no amount of preaching could help people there). It must have been referring to a third place, one that was temporary.

Answer 10

The soul is the people no matter when they lived, their whole being is their soul.

1Cor.15:22; As in Adam all die, even so in Christ Shall all be made alive.

Heb.9:27; It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgement.

Adam and Eve were created souls.

We are born souls with inherited sin from them to death.

We have a promise to be a resurrected soul.

Answer 11

i think everybody just goes to pergatory(sp) until jebus returns. (the sequel to Jebus I, the great sacrifice, starring Bruce willis, and Dennis rodman) upon return your soul is judged by a panel of celebrities and either given the thumbs up or down. of course they will take into consideration the time frame of when you were alive, and whether or not you had even ever heard of senior messiah. actually i heard somewhere that if you are never told about the word/life of christ you are given a free pass, kinda makes you wonder why the christians want to spread the word to all the people in the world thus negating the free ride through the pearly gates.