Jesus Descended
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I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended into hell...
As we make our way though the Apostle’s Creed, we arrive today at what is arguably the most controversial line.
“he descended into hell”
So controversial in fact that for a long time Methodist hymnals omitted that line. Today, if you turn to the back of your hymnals - you will find on #881 and #882 two versions of the Creed.
#881 is called the so-called Traditional version which doesn’t include the line but instead includes a footnote stating that the Traditional use of the Creed includes the words “He descended into hell”.
#882 is the ecumenical version which was included in the hymnal in 1989. This was a move to bring the Apostles’ Creed used by Methodist back in alignment with the historic Creed used by other branches of the Christian faith. Instead of “He descended into hell” - the translators wrote “He descended to the dead.”
There is good reason for this. The meaning of the word hell has changed a bit since the time the Creed was first written. Today, we understand hell to be a place of the damned, where those who reject Christ suffer eternal punishment. Our imagery of hell - with flames, devils and pitchforks - is shaped more from Dante’s Inferno, the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy than from the Bible itself. The hell described in the Creed refers to Sheol, the ancient Hebrew name for the place of the dead. In the ancient times, it was understood that all people, when they died, went to Sheol - the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Sheol was a place of torment for the unrighteous, and a place of rest for the righteous. The Creed tells us that Jesus descended all the way down to where the spirits of the dead reside.
As a pastor, I have on several occasions stood at the beside of persons as they have taken their last breath and their spirit departs their body. As most of you know, I stood by my own father earlier this month when he breathed his last breath.
And I hope this does not come across as crass - that is not my intention - it is just my observation that in one moment the body is full of life, and the next it is but a shell, and empty vessel. The life force, the spirit - moves on to the spiritual realm. And the separation of body and spirit is rarely peaceful - because we were designed to be embodied spirits. That is why death is so scandalous. The definition of sacrilege is the violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred - I believe that what death is. Because of Adam’s disobedience and the curse that followed, we will all face this separation. The good news is that this separation is not permanent - and that one day, we will all experience resurrection and receive new bodies.
For that to happen, for the curse to be revoked, Christ had to die a human death.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Now it has to be acknowledged that the Bible does not provide much in the way of details regarding what was happening between the time of Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection on Sunday morning.
We have the passage from 1 Peter 3:19-20
And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison. In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water.
Admittedly, that is not the clearest of passages. If we go back to the early Church teachers, we find that Saint Augustine believed that Jesus literally went down into hell, but in a letter to another Christian he admitted he was perplexed and wondered why - if prison in this particular passage means hell - did Christ single out those spirits from Noah’s day and what did he actually preach to them? And, according to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus - where we are told that in Sheol, in the afterlife, there is a separation between the unrighteous dead and the righteous dead - who did Jesus go down to preach to?
Several centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas (Ah-Qwhy-Nas) attempted to resolve this confusion by explaining that Christ descended to two locations - hell and purgatory. Each with a different purpose, according to Steve Gertz, editor of Christian History, “In hell, he put unbelievers to shame, while in purgatory, he gave sinners hope for glory and the righteous deliverance.”
Aquinas explanation did not put the debate to rest. Later, during the reformation, Martin Luther and others would reject the doctrine of purgatory.
I share all this to simply say - no one definitively knows what all transpired down there.
While the specific actions of Jesus on Holy Saturday may not be fully known and agreed up by the Church, there is agreement within the broad, universal Church that Jesus did in fact descend into the place of the dead.
Why is this important and what does this teaching inform us?
Well, let me share with you two other relevant passages before unpacking this truth.
Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.
Adam and Eve’s disobedience banned them from the paradise they enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. They would be cut off from the source of eternal life and a flaming sword prevented their return.
Now we jump ahead to the culmination of God’s plan of salvation - the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross reconciling man to God. Here we find the thief on the cross, crucified next to Jesus, crying out to the Lord “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” followed by Jesus response:
And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
What was Jesus doing on Holy Saturday? He was opening up paradise!
Saint Bede, one of the greatest Church teachers from the early middle ages, wrote the following:
Old Testament I: Genesis 1–11 Christ Has Extinguished Its Flame (Bede)
CHRIST HAS EXTINGUISHED ITS FLAME. BEDE: The second Adam, Jesus Christ, points out that through the water of the bath of rebirth, the flickering flame—by which the cherubim guardian blocked the entry into paradise when the first Adam was expelled—would be extinguished. Where the one went out with his wife, having been conquered by his enemy, there the other might return with his spouse (namely, the church of the saints), as a conqueror over his enemy. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.12.
As outlined in the study I am currently leading, Foundations of the Christian Faith, by decending into hell, Christ was doing three things:
First, Jesus proclaimed the gospel to people throughout time who are awaiting their full deliverance.
Even those ancient people, who had lived to please God - going all the way back to the beginning of human history - their hope was not in vain, their faithfulness was not without profit. God saw them, and Christ died for them as well as for us.
Second, the descent to the dead expresses the full victory of Jesus Christ over Satan and all the principalities and powers of evil.
Satan thought that he had won when Jesus died - that thought did not last long.
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
By dying, Jesus paid the price for all of our sins. That which Satan could legally hold over us, was now null and void. The power he held was broken. Jesus strolled in to hell and basically said “How you like me now?” Before escorting out the righteous.
Third, the descent to the dead unites Jesus with the saints from all time in his glorious ascension. Again, from our current study: Ephesians 4:8 declares, “When He ascended on high He led captives in His train and gave gifts to men.” This idea of leading “captives” is actually a positive reference to those who have been “captured” by Christ and brought into his victory train or victory celebration. Paul goes on to say, “What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” (Eph. 4:9). When Jesus ascended into heaven, he did not arrive alone, but with all the redeemed over all time with him, declaring, “Here am I, and the children God has given me” (Heb. 2:13).
Praise the Lord!
There is one more thing I believe we can infer on a very practical level.
Jesus descending to hell informs us of this:
Jesus, being fully man, lived the full human experience: birth, life, death, and grave so that Jesus, being fully God, could seek out, find and rescue all of humanity - in every realm we are located. There is no place God would not go to rescue you. There is no depth he would not lower himself, there is no height beyond his reach.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Christ is victor. He has conquered Satan. He has taken back the keys of hell and death, he has reopened paradise.
We are to respond to his grace, repent and trust in Jesus, for it is by faith that you are redeemed, and Christ himself will usher you into His Kingdom.
There is some debate in the Church whether or not there is the opportunity immediately after death to accept Christ. Again, there are some things the Church does not definitively know. What we do know is enough - why take the risk. Turn to Jesus while there is still time. Receive new life today.
In this life, you are never too far gone to turn Christ. That is the Gospel - Amen.