Christ said to the thief who was crucified with him: "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." "Paradise" is a Persian word meaning a garden. Probably the thief was of Persian origin, and did not understand another term to describe the place of the faithful dead, in which they wait for the resurrection to everlasting life. After the death of his body, Christ’s soul entered into this expanse, where the godly dead rest. We do not know much about his movements and works other than what Peter said that he preached the spirits in the prison of the dead who did not hear the gospel of salvation before (1 Peter 3:19; 4:6). Christ’s entry into the dwelling-places of the companions of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a triumph. Christ did not preach long there, for his appearance among the souls of the dead produced to some of them immediate acceptance of the gospel, while the others refused him completely. Those dead cannot do good works for their salvation, but their faith had saved them, and the unbelief of some of them had destroyed them.
On earth, Christ’s death appeared as a defeat in a horrible battle. Christ’s body dangled lifelessly on the cross. No one had a right to remove it but by authority of the Roman magistrate. Suddenly a member of the Sanhedrin named Joseph of Arimathea came. The same as Nicodemus, he was not consented to sentencing Jesus to death on the pretext of blasphemy. However they could do nothing, for the sounds of the majority of sixty-eight members became predominant over theirs. Uncaring about his charge as being one of the persecuted followers of the crucified Christ, Joseph dared and came to Pilate, the judge who condemned Jesus, and begged the rejected body of Jesus bury it, and Pilate agreed that he might get rid of this matter which convicted his conscience. Joseph also was not careful about becoming unclean according to the Jewish belief that regarded him unclean who touched a dead man before the Sabbath and the coming Feast of the Unleavened Bread. He was sorrowful and displeased, for he knew that the kingdom of God did not come through fasting, laws, lengthy prayers, or self-righteousness, but began with Jesus Christ. So he confessed his belief in the dead King, even in the danger of death, for he loved Christ, and was angry when his fellow members of the Sanhedrin sentenced the Son of God.
This noble gentleman, together with his servants, took down the body of Jesus. He wrapped it in an expensive shroud, hastily anointed it, and laid it in an excellent, readymade tomb that was hewn in stone, which was probably designed for Joseph’s own family. Thus Jesus was buried as a noble prince.
These formalities were completed as soon as possible, for the Sabbath was at hand. Hundreds of lambs and goats were slain in the courtyard of the temple while Jesus was hanged on the cross shedding his blood as the worthy Lamb of God offered for all men.
Yet the majority of the Jewish people did not realize their salvation, but continued in their worship to the perishable, fading away law.
Some of the women of Galilee who had followed Jesus and his disciples in his triumph procession, and ministered to the men in the purity of the Holy Spirit, came first to the tomb that was hewn out of the rock to clean it. Having witnessed the burial and the place in which the body was laid, they hurried to the city to buy ointments and spices to embalm the body decently with expensive spices on the coming Sunday, for the Sabbath was a holy day in which nobody could buy, sell, anoint the dead, or do any other work. Yet, when they came on Sunday, at the Feast of the Passover, they thought they would anoint him in his tomb, for he was dead in fact as they had already seen him. They wept bitterly on that Day of the Passover, met enduring the same suffering, and recollected the great things of him who was devoured by the power of darkness.