The Dead - Part 2

According to the 1st Belief discussed under 'The Dead - Part 1', when someone dies, he goes to a state of sleeping in a grave.

What is this grave?
Where is it?
Is it the pit in the cemetery, wherein the dead man is buried? If so, what about people whose bodies are cremated?

Let's try to understand the real place of graves according to the scriptures...

We read in the Bible that Jesus Christ was killed on the cross and after three days, God raised Him from the dead. Jesus Himself predicted the kind of death He was supposed to face. Look at the below scripture:

Mark 8:31
31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

According to the above scripture, Jesus was among the dead for three days before He was raised from the dead by God.

Acts 13:29-30
29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. 30 But God raised him from the dead:

However, Matthew 12:40 reveals where Jesus really was for three days after He was killed.

Matthew 12:40
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

If Jesus was raised from the dead after three days and during these three days, Jesus was in the heart of the earth (the centre of the earth), obviously, the dead are in the heart or the centre of the earth.

Hence, when we say, 'the dead are raised from their graves', these graves are located in the heart of the earth. 

Therefore,  although the Living have placed idol angels on top of the graves in the cemetery, wherein the dead bodies of their beloved were buried, in order to demonstrate the raising of them from the dead on the judgement day, we should not expect any souls to come out of these pits or graves in the cemetery.

Soon after Jesus went down to the heart of the earth, some of the graves in the heart of the earth were opened and saints who were sleeping in these graves were awaken. 

Matthew 27:50-53
50 , when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; 52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,3 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. 

According to the above scriptures, it is clear that when Jesus was resurrected from the dead, who were in the heart of the earth, Jesus took the saints who were awaken in their graves, with Him to the face of the earth.

However, Jesus was upon the face of the earth only for 40 days.

Acts 1:3
3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:

At the end of the 40 days, Jesus was ascended up to Heaven (Dwelling Place of God) by His Father God, from the face of the earth.

Acts 1:9
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

The scripture strongly confirms that only Jesus was ascended up to Heaven - Dwelling Place of God.

John 3:13
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.

Then, where did the saints who came out to the face of the earth from their graves in the heart of the earth, go???
Did they go back to the graves in the heart of the earth???
Are they still roaming over the face of the earth???

Read Part 3...