It is generally supposed by expositors that it is heaven itself which is hereby intended. Hence some of the ancients, the schoolmen, and sundry expositors of the Roman church, have concluded that no believers under the old testament, none of the ancient patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, or David, were admitted into heaven whilst the first tabernacle stood; that is, until the ascension of Christ. Hereon they framed a limbus for them in some subterranean receptacle,—whither they suppose the soul of Christ went, when it is said that he “descended into hell,”—where they were detained, and whence by him they were delivered. But whatever becomes of that imagination, the most learned expositors of that church of late, such as Ribera, Estius, Tena, Maldonate, A Lapide, do not fix it on this text; for the supposition whereon it is founded is wholly alien from the scope of the apostle, and no way useful in his present argument. For he discourseth about the privileges of the church by the gospel and priesthood of Christ in this world, and not about its future state and condition.

John Owen | An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. W. H. Goold, vol. 23, Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1854), 237–38.

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