An acquaintance of mine threw a question/challenge out to the public in the hope of a response. No one seemed to respond so I took a couple of days, to put together a response, and this is it.

 You asked general but widespread questions. I separated what you wrote into assertions and questions, and this is my response.

"... does anyone else see some resemblance in the description of the rapture and the events at the crucifixion?"

I briefly saw that one of my end times teachers was talking about something like this, but I didn't pay attention and moved on. However, we must understand why Jesus went to the cross and, in both events, there is a catching away. 

This ONLY happened because He went into the heavenly temple and poured out His blood as a sacrifice for us to fulfill the demands of the law, to bring salvation by repurchasing humanity back from Satan, and to bestow righteousness upon all who would accept this salvation.

"Jesus ascended into hell to catch up the unredeemed spirits and graves opened."

No doubt, Jesus went into hell, but was “catching up the unredeemed spirits” the only reason He went there? 

Hardly, but then you should have known that. 

Ephesians 4:8-10 NKJV “Therefore He says: "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE, AND GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." 9) (Now this, "HE ASCENDED"—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10) He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.”

If I may speak freely, this wording, “ WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE,” makes no sense. It implies that Jesus took these captives from one captivity to another, which He did NOT. Several versions read just like this, but that does not make it correct. 

The Good News Bible tells us, "When He went up to the very heights, He took many captives with Him.” In a sense, these alternate translations are more explainable. The usage of the word many indicates that some chose not to go. What kind of foolishness would motivate a response like that?

Look at what Hebrews tells us. 

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.” 
Hebrews 2:9 NKJV

While we must all taste death, the fear is supposed to be gone. If you are having fears about death, I must tell you that this fear is a demon working off of a known weakness, and fear is a big problem for most of us.

Where did go to suffer death? 

Hell. The book of Revelation shows us that Jesus took the keys from Satan. I am sure that most perceive Jesus as struggling with Satan, but having God stand before you, would you fight?

My wife's father did forward communications in Europe during WW2. He came home with a German trench knife. Since they did not hand these collectibles out to the enemy, that tells me that her father had to take it from at least one of them; that realization gave me a greater appreciation for such a quiet man.

"I am He who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death." 
Revelation 1:18 NKJV

Note how the NKJV translation uses the terms Hades and Death. 

Death is the Greek word thanatos and means death both literally and figuratively.

Since we never really die, is it possible that death implies something else, like an eternal separation from God.?

It is possible. 

While there are indeed souls lying in Hades, I contend that there is NO ONE in hell as yet. Ecclesiastes tells us that the dead lie in silence until the final judgment; 

“For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten.” 
Ecclesiastes 9:5 NKJV 

and that only happens at the great white throne; and NO, not everyone before that throne goes to hell. Read about the sheep and goats in Matthew 25.

Hades, on the other hand, is “the place (state) of departed souls: - grave.” Strong's

Some will sharply argue that there is a separation even today. In an effort to respond to this aggressiveness about the usage of the word hell, I give you Matthew 5:22, which says, “Whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” The CEV translation says, “And if you say that someone is worthless, you will be in danger of the fires of hell.” 

Doesn't all this smell of road rage? 

And if it is a crime in God's eyes, then we are all guilty.

So the word you did not see here in the Revelation, and a relatively common word that the Bible translators used, is hell. 

Hell, is the Greek word geenna, pronounced gehenna. 

“Gehenna, the basis for the word hell, was a place just outside the walls of Jerusalem, the valley of Hinnom. This valley the idolatrous Israelites devoted formerly to the horrid worship of Moloch, 2Ki_16:3; 2Ch_28:3. In that worship, the ancient Jewish writers inform us, the idol of Moloch was of brass, adorned with a royal crown, having the head of a calf, and his arms extended as if to embrace anyone. When they offered children to him they heated the statue within by a great fire, and when it was burning hot they put the miserable child into his arms, where it was soon consumed by the heat; and, in order that the cries of the child might not be heard, they made a great noise with drums and other instruments about the idol.” (Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible.) The place became a trash dump, burning constantly and smelling horrible.

The name Gehenna or the word hell are both indicative of everlasting punishment. 

And everlasting punishment is also eternal separation from God, which we see when people are finally cast into the lake of fire, which burns forever.

However, since one event changed everything - Jesus and the cross, "hell" also changed. 

What changed in hell that day?

Remember the rich man and Lazarus - the poor Jewish beggar. Both died, and we find that the rich man was now in torment and Lazarus, the former beggar, was being comforted in Abraham’s bosom. 

This story is important because Jewish tradition would put the rich man in Abraham’s bosom merely because righteousness and riches went together. 

Jesus, by His words and actions, undid that tradition.  

He took the keys of death, hell, and the grave. In so doing, He removed Satan’s control and effectively removed the fear of death. 

He also eliminated this split system that we see in the Lazarus narrative. 

Why did that happen? 

Because Jesus became the serpent upon the pole that we are to look upon and live. 

Numbers 21:5-9 NKJV “And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread." 6)  So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. 7) Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8) Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it, shall live." 9) So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”

The effect is that when someone dies now, having already looked upon Jesus, they are either in the arms of Jesus or merely asleep and know nothing. 

All time changed at this event, and the potential for all to have life in Him became available that day. 

Death is no longer to be feared.

So these levels or separations that people see in hell were removed. Mind you, much of this so-called understanding about hell came from the author Dante Alighieri and his book The Inferno, where he, as the author, created stages and levels in hell, where he put corrupt politicians and leaders from the Catholic church.

"Jesus ascended into hell to catch up the unredeemed spirits..." 

I am sure you mean to say descended, but that is irrelevant. Since Jesus preached to the captives, one might assume that everyone there was a captive, but we cannot yet make the assumption that anyone there was redeemed. 

I came to this understanding because there was no one in Christ, seeing as He had not gone up to the Father yet, and the Holy Spirit had not come. And though it seems too simplistic, I will say it, there was no church to make converts.

 So, does the rich man, who was now in torment, fall under the category of unredeemed? 

The answer to this question must have driven the Jewish audience crazy. I suspect that was a part of Jesus' intent. If someone fell under the category of redeemed, I would imagine the beggar Lazarus was your man. 

But what about King David? 

You should not be able to give him the righteous award as he was quite the scoundrel when it came to Bathsheba. 

How about King Saul? 

This man had the Spirit of God on him and lost not only it but his mind as well. 

I suppose the point here is our inability to determine who is righteous and deserving of God's redeeming grace and who should remain under punishment; this is precisely why the forgiveness of sin is extended to everyone, including Saul and Judas (Yes, I said Judas. I threw him into the mix because I do see repentance in his words and actions toward the end. Now to say that someone has unforgivably condemned themselves to hell, 1) prematurely judges that person, and 2) moves us into the category of being a judge, and that is NOT our jobs, as all judgment has been given unto the Son, NOT YOU. Read John 5:22.) 

Imagine what Jesus must have preached to these "captives." 

Could there have been some who turned Him down? 

Any answers we have to this question are pure conjecture on our part, seeing as we have no definitive answer.

"People previously dead were alive and walking among the living."

“The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After Jesus’ resurrection, when they had come out of the tombs, they entered the holy city and appeared to many people.” 
Matthew 27:52-53 BSB

Who were these people?

Perhaps the answer as to who these people, coming out of their entombments, is this: 

“Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” John 11:25 NKJV

We do NOT know the answer to this question, but what did Jesus preach to these “captives” who were lying in silence? 

The good news - is that life, freedom, hope, and eternity with the Father are available, and you can have all that if you will follow me. If it was life, it would appear that many believed and, therefore, came to life and emerged from their grave sites.

The first thing we deal with is the number of people who emerged from their entombments.

The Greek word translated as many is polys, which means great in magnitude or quantity. 

 It is difficult to even imagine, as Jerusalem suddenly became inundated by people who had previously been dead. (I also assume it was a localized event, but we have NOTHING to tell us that it only happened in Jerusalem.) 

To make this a bit more interesting, let's discuss Lazarus, Jesus’ friend who died. (Read John chapter 11.) So many struggle to explain why Jesus waited four days to come and raise him up. The reason lies in the Jewish tradition says the soul finally leaves the body after three days. Jesus waited that long to ensure that these religious zealots could not say that what Jesus did was easy because Lazarus’ soul was still in his body. As the faith teacher Kenneth Copeland once said, if you think it’s so easy, then why don’t you get a freshly dead person and try it.” 

“Recently..., hearing the (“dead in Christ will rise first“), I immediately thought we who are born again are not dead in Christ even after we die in flesh.”

Born. gennao. Meaning: to be begotten. Metaphorically of God making Christ the center of your life. Regenerated. 

Again:  It is the Greek word anōthen and means from above, anew. A second time, once more.

Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, talks about this transition that we, as corruptible mortals, must go through. We don’t talk about this transition because it is death, and death makes people squirm because they fear death. As I have pointed out, we no longer have to fear death, so let’s dive in. 

Becoming “born again” does NOT kill the flesh or make sin disappear. It is like pushing the reset button on your spirit, but you cannot eliminate that one flawed processing chip. If you could go and buy another, you would find that they all used that one faulty chip; therefore, the machine will eventually fail in a similar manner.

So, assuming that you realize that you were born from above, and are made in the image of the Father, then you know that this all happens independent of death. 

Look at 1 Corinthians 15:50-54, and you will see things like flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 

Well, guess what? 

If you are reading this, you are flesh and blood. It would certainly seem as though these air-breathing bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 

So what’s the workaround? 

These bodies have to die, and No, that is NOT your job; it is God’s, and this is part of the MYSTERY that Paul speaks of. As you can see above, we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Surprise, you will most likely shed this corrupted, mortal body as you migrate upward. Those dead people, believers, will have already gone through this and will pass us by momentarily as we put on our immortality. 

I keep thinking about the guy who died but came back to life. One of the dominant things he could remember was that he felt a good site better while he was in heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:50-54 NKJV “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51) Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54) So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY."”

Our being in Christ Jesus is a product of our simplistic faith in Jesus Christ, and we will never become separated from this life that we have in Christ, even if it involves death. 

Here are a few verses to help strengthen your knowledge of Him.

Rom_6:11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Gal_3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Col_1:28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

 Put something like the Blue Letter Bible app on your phone and then do a search for “in Christ Jesus,” you will find a vast number of passages that may help to assist you in your understanding, and that will help you hold on to the truth that you, because of your belief are in Christ, never to be separated.

“… Who might qualify as dead in Christ?” 

Anyone who has come to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ and died. 

Before the cross, no one could come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. However, two people in the New Testament challenge my understanding of how we know Jesus Christ: Simeon – the old but devout and holy man, that was led by the Spirit to come to the temple at the exact moment that Joseph and Mary brought Jesus for His bris - circumcision. The other person was Anna – the elderly prophetess. These two spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Now, consider that Jesus lived for 33 more years. 

Did Simeon and Anna die and go to the Father or Hades, the place of departed souls? 

We can only assume, but it would be a good one. Therefore, until Jesus came and took the keys from Satan, Hades may have been the holding place for Anna and Simeon, not to mention a few others that God pronounced as righteous in the Old Testament. On the day Jesus showed up in Hades, all that changed as He offered them a one-way ticket into the Father's arms by preaching to the captives. 

Consider, if they were righteous, as Jesus was, then Satan holding them there in Hades would have been an illegal move on his part. If Satan held them, they were captives until Jesus set them free. At that moment in time, they became the dead in Christ.

In the statements above, I focused on qualifications. Now let's define what it is to be “dead in Christ.”

Search for the term dead in Christ; it only comes up once, 1 Thessalonians 4:16. 

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16 NKJV

Dead is the Greek word nekros and means corpse (literally dead.) The Word Study Dictionary takes it further and defines it as a deceased person. 

Although I am not dead now, it is apparent that death is required. Seeing as life is vital for the work of God. (I am scratching my head as I say that.) I suspect that even God sees a purpose for our being born, as it allows for our gifts and free choice to Worship the creator – God. 

But flesh carries with it a problem, as the Apostle Paul told us that flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God. 

“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.” 1 Corinthians 15:50 NKJV 

This air-breathing body is corrupted because this body carries a broken genome that drives our selfish impulses – the impulse to sin. (I say it this way because it is the only thing that makes sense.) and Heaven has no corruption in it, which is why flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So, we, in these bodies, cannot enter into heaven. 

Obviously, something will change, and we will shed these earth suits. But until then, Jesus gives us the right to consider ourselves dead to sin. I get to practice that one daily. 

“I surmise that those pre-crucifixion believers had not been redeemed until that day.”

It is often difficult to see some of these characters as righteous. Samson is called righteous, but he did many things outside of what we would think was God's will. Turns out it was God's will, but we could barely see it until the last page of the narrative. Lot was willing to give his daughters to those pond scum pounding on his door, and then the angels had to drag Lot and his family out of town to safety. And what about the guy I consider the biker of the Bible, Jephthah. God called them all righteous. 

When we use the word redeemed, there is a mountain of religious rules and regulations attached to it, and there is the assumption that we will walk away from the situation with a bright shiny face. I can tell you that I walked away from a few things while dragging my exhausted behind out of there, and my face was NOT shining. I can look back now and see how God called me righteous, but few may have picked up on God's plan and hope for me. 

“They were the dead in Christ that rose first.” 

As I pointed out above, it would seem that people God called righteous were illegally held captive against their will. Since Christ preached to the captives, He may have changed their status to being in Christ. Thank God they were already dead because they got to rise first. I have nothing more than what I have proposed here to prove that, but what a great story. 

“Where does that leave us? ...”

You sound so depressed. If your life is hidden in Christ, then, at the moment, you are ALIVE in Christ and living inside an earth suit, and you get to deal with a thousand different feelings, most of which were a gift from God. Obviously, Satan managed to corrupt those feelings, but soon, we will shed those suits, put on our new robes, and spend eternity with the Father. 

“The end will see a battle in which God destroys all his enemies...”

Revelation 19 shows us one of the last great battles, where Jesus comes riding back with a sword coming out of His mouth, and He is followed by the saints of heaven. This sword is the Word of God. But notice something; you never see Him swing it, nor do you see the armies of heaven engaged in battle. That Word does all the killing and kills all who choose to fight against Him in seconds.

If He kills all infidels, who would be left to rule over? 

Think about this. After killing the combatants, we are told that He rules over the nations for a thousand years. 

“And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.” 
Revelation 21:24 NKJV)

The New Testament has the Old as its foundation, so here is a passage from the Old.

“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD's house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the LORD.” Isaiah 2:2-5 NKJV)

He and those slaughtered saints from the seven years will sit on thrones in judgment during the 1000 years. How appropriate. 

“Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4 NLT)

Okay, that battle is over, and who is thrown into the lake of fire? 

Satan – for 1000 years, and the only two humans there, the antichrist and the false prophet; that's it. 

“And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who did mighty miracles on behalf of the beast—miracles that deceived all who had accepted the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue. Both the beast and his false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.” Revelation 19:20 NLT)

“and binds them a thousand years.”

No one human is bound by God.

Remember, all sins were forgiven on the cross, so NO ONE is being judged for sin. Now, there will be a time of judgment, but that judgment is based upon what you did with Jesus, and that happens at the great white throne. This is the only place and time this will happen. 

Fast forward a thousand years. What happens next?

Satan is released and once again deceives the nations. Those poor fools, many of them, will attempt to surround the Holy City with the hope of killing us, Jesus and God. God, on the other hand, kills all who join in this stunt. Those dead people join all the other dead from the beginning of time who have not gone up in the rapture (this is where Matthew 25 kicks in), and some are shown mercy. Those not afforded mercy are then judged and thrown into the lake of fire, where they are forgotten and permanently separated from God.

And all the rest of us join Jesus and the Father in eternity, never to be troubled again.