Trusting In The Death Of God (1 Peter 3:18-22)

Introduction

Good morning to all of you. We continue our sermon series this morning called “I Believe” which is a line-by-line journey through the Apostles’ Creed. And you know the line we come to today, I trust.

In our wording of the Creed it is the bit where we confess that after Jesus died he descended into the dead.

Some versions of the Creed confess “He descended into hell.” In fact, language in our own Larger Catechism speaks of the descent into hell. And the version of the Creed that appears in the back of your hymnals has “He descended into hell.”

This is probably the most controversial line in our creed. And the most misunderstood. I mean, did Jesus go to hell after he died on the cross? It is a rather odd proposition for most of us.

Well let us begin by reading our sermon text for today, which is

1 Peter 3:18–22 (ESV)

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

So before we unpack that text, I want us to think for a moment about this language of Jesus’s descent into the dead or descent into hell. What do we do with this?

Some evangelicals remove it entirely. Others argue that it is simply a way of expressing Christ’s torment on the cross. So the idea is that when the creed says he descended into hell, this is nothing more than a reference to the previous clause that he was crucified, died and buried. So the idea is that Jesus on the cross experienced all the spiritual torments of hell in a concentrated dose, and that the cross itself was the decent into hell that culminates in “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The main problem is that this view does not exist in Church History until John Calvin. And I am usually loathe to disagree with Calvin, I think he was one of the sharpest theologians the church has ever seen. But even the best of men can err, and I think Calvin does here.

What I am going to preach to you this morning is that to confess that Jesus descended into the dead means that he went somewhere. And I think he tells us where.

Let’s pray

Blessed Lord, you have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning—grant us that we may in such a way hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. From the Book of Common Prayer (1552)

Concerning A Descent

So, let us begin with this matter of the text of the Creed itself. There are a few different Latin versions of the Creed, and some of them do say that Jesus “descended into hell.”

Others say “descended into the dead.” And what’s interesting is the ones that say he descended into the dead are the earlier versions, not the later ones.

But even if we don’t speak of Jesus “going to hell” there is still something many of us find odd about this whole matter of descent into the dead. This matter of going down after death. If not hell, then where?

Now what is really interesting to note is that putting whatever discomforts we may have aside, the idea or concept of descent into the underworld is one of the most common concepts in literature. That doesn’t prove it biblically, but it does mean there is something in us, something in our bones, that understands that you must be laid low before you can rise up.

Theologian Matthew Emmerson—I’m going to quote him a few times in this sermon, he wrote a great book called He Descended Into The Dead, an Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday.

And he observes that this is a common theme running across our stories. Hercules dives into Hades, even in the Disney version.

Harry Potter goes down into the Chamber of Secrets.

Doctor Strange enters the dark dimension to face the evil being Moldo.

In the TV Series Stranger Things, Joyce and Hopper go looking for Will in the realm of the upside down, which is really just the underworld by a different name.

Jill and Eustace rescue Prince Rilian from the Underland in The Silver Chair.

And Gandalf descends into the depths of Moria and gives up his own life to defeat the Balrog, and then rises again to save Middle-Earth.

There is something in our stories and in our blood about this. A shared yearning for a hero who can enter the underworld, defeat our enemies, and bring the dead back to life.

So my challenge to you this morning is to think like ancients, not like moderns. To allow yourself to be surprised by ideas that would not have surprised the apostles in the tiniest bit.

So what I am going to present to you this morning will probably disrupt some of your concepts of the afterlife, especially for saints in the Old Testament. But, if we are honest, most of us have questions about the concept of afterlife in the Old Testament.

When the Old Testament Saints died, where did they go? When Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, David, Ezekiel, and Daniel died, where did they go? We are tempted to say heaven. But if you read your Old Testament carefully, you see this repeated reference to a place called “Sheol”--what is that about?

Concerning Sheol

Well, what we have in Jewish literature from the time of Jesus and a bit before gives us a very interesting picture of the ancient Jewish conception of the afterlife. In those Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, when Old Testament saints died, they did not go up, they went down. They did not go up to heaven, they went down to Sheol in Hebrew, or in Greek, Hades.

Now here’s where things get interesting—that does not mean they went to a place of suffering and misery. That’s because it was believed that Sheol was compartmentalized. There was paradise (also called Abraham’s Bosom or Abraham’s side). Then there was a place of torment for the wicked, and these two were separated by an unbridgeable gulf.

Then there was a place of darkness called the abyss or Tartarus (the place for fallen angels). And then the bottom level was called Ghenna or Hell–the place of ultimate judgment.

Now with the language I just used, many of you are already making connections with another biblical text, namely Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In this parable there is a comfortable and careless rich man who mistreats a miserable poor man named Lazarus (not the Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead). And then both men die, and here’s what happens.

Luke 16:22–26 (ESV)

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

Now, when we read that, our response is usually something like “What is going on here?” But this would have perplexed absolutely no one in Jesus’s audience, except perhaps for the fact that the rich man is in the place of torment, since material wealth was often seen as a sign of securing God’s blessing in this life and the next.

But all this stuff about being with Abraham in paradise and the wide gulf between the place of paradise and torment, and how they seem to be sort of in the same area, though distant from each other–that was standard religion in Jesus’s day.

So what you have in Jesus’s day is a conception of the afterlife where you don’t go up, you go down. But down doesn’t mean hell. It means a place of paradise for the righteous (and paradise was the term that was used). Or it means a place of torment for the wicked, separated by an unbridgeable gulf. It’s not in the lower regions where you have the abyss or Tartarus, the place of suffering for fallen angels. And it doesn’t mean the even lower region of the lake of fire or hell. It means…Sheol or Hades, a place that could be very comfortable or could be very miserable, depending on whether or not you were trusting in the promises of God.

Such that when Jesus says to the thief on the cross

Luke 23:43 (ESV)

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

He does not mean heaven. He means you’re coming with me to the underworld, to the place of paradise. At least temporarily.

And now, with that in mind, I want us to return to our main text

1 Peter 3:18–22 (ESV)

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

So what is going on here? We are told that Christ after he died, was made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. That’s odd. We learn also that these spirits were disobedient spirits because in the days of Noah and the Nephiliem, Noah was building an ark, and eight people were saved and the rest perished. And that these spirits are now in prison. Well again, what I offer to you is that all of Peter’s first-century hearers would have understood that as a reference to the level beneath Sheol, the place of imprisonment for fallen angels.

And what this text seems to be saying is that Jesus went to the Underworld and proclaimed something.

So what did he proclaim? Did he preach the Gospel? Did he hold an evangelistic service? Well, that’s where things get interesting. Because this word for proclaim is not the word for preach, that is usually used in reference to preaching the Gospel. In fact the term simply means a proclamation. Could be good news or bad news. Could be salvation or judgment.

And in fact, I want to offer to you this morning that it was both. Rather than warming up to this, I want to give you my conviction on the front end.

Jesus Christ, after his death, descended into the underworld, tore open the Gates of Hades, and came face to face with the Old Testament Saints. They had not been in torment. They had been in a place that—while it wasn’t as glorious as heaven—was not a place of suffering. It was called Paradise or Elysium in Greek, it’s where Elision Fields comes from.

And the Jews called it Abraham’s side. But it was a place of waiting. And they had been waiting. Waiting for the rescue of the Messiah. Who comes barreling through the gates of Sheol and proclaims his victory over death to all their glad rejoicing. But not only to their hearing. It is a proclamation that to their ears is the highest joy they could imagine, but the voice of Jesus also shakes the full expanse across the divide and down to the very depths of the abyss and it rings in the ears of every evil imprisoned spirit that Christ has conquered death, and has come for the keys to the gates of Hades.

And this is what Jesus means when he says

Revelation 1:17b–18 (ESV)

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

And so now Jesus is the one with the keys to death and he gets to decide when those gates are open or shut.

More Convincing? (Other Scriptures)

So perhaps you need more convincing of this? Well that’s ok, I want to explore a couple of other texts this morning.

Paul, in Ephesians 4, teaches that Jesus descended to the place of the righteous dead. If you look at Ephesians 4:7-10, and I’m going to use the New King James for this because I think it’s the superior translation in this instance—this is what we find:

Ephesians 4:7–10 (NKJV)

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

Now when I preached this text in our sermon series on Ephesians, on January 14, 2024, I said I wanted to come back to it someday in a sermon on the Apostles’ Creed, and here we are.

But what we have here is Jesus ascending after he descends, and he’s bringing captives with him. Well where did he get those from? From Sheol. From Hades. He busted down the gates, took the keys, and brings those Old Testament Saints with him to heaven.

We also see similar language in

Philippians 2:9–11 (ESV)

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Why does Paul speak this way? Because he has a three-tiered understanding of the cosmos. There is heaven. There is the earth. And there is the underworld. The realm under the earth, and they all will bow the knee to Christ, because they have all under the authority of Christ. There is no place that has been unvisited by him. He has left no realm untouched, which is why every realm belongs to him. None of it is outside his rule and authority, which is why he has the keys. And does this image not cause your heart to rise up for worship—Jesus Christ, wrecking the gates of the underworld, proclaiming his glorious victory to all who will listen (and to plenty who would rather not) before holding out his hand and saying “Keys, please.”

Coming Back to an Earlier Point

So is that a sufficient case? Well, within the limits of the time I have this morning, I do present it to you in earnest and offer that this has been the consistent teaching of the church for pretty much as long as we have records.

Now as I said, it is the case that some Latin versions of the Creed have “He descended into hell.” And the confusion is understandable. We get our English word Hell from the same Anglo-Saxon word “hel.” Which that Anglo-Saxon term was originally much closer to Hades.

But over time, the modern English causes people to think of Gehenna or the final lake of fiery torment. So when we confess “He descended into Hell,” it sounds like Jesus went into the lake of fire or the place of the damned. But that is incorrect. The suffering of Christ happened on the cross. He did not then go to hell to suffer more. He went to Hades to burst the gates, claim the Old Testament Saints, proclaim his victory to the lowest parts of the earth, to grab the keys to the place, and then to exit with all those Saints coming with him. Paradise itself was now being relocated to the heavenly places because post resurrection, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, a joy and privilege that most of the Old Testament Saints did not have until Resurrection Morning.

So if we were going to name a location when we confess the Creed, it would actually be much more accurate to confess “He descended into Hades.” And I would be fine with that, by the way. But I haven’t even mentioned that to the Session, so I’m not saying that is what we will do.

So some churches confess “He descended into hell,” and I think that’s fine so long as you understand that hell there is being used as a broad term for the Underworld, and not for the actual place of final judgement for the wicked.

The reason Jesus is not going to a place of suffer is that Jesus descended after his announcement of “It is finished.” In other words, when Jesus descended, he was not going down in order to suffer. He was going down in order to conquer, to win, and to proclaim his victory.

To borrow again from Matthew Emmerson:

“[T]he descent communicates not torment, but victory. The descent is the first of three stops on Jesus’s victory tour: he proclaims victory in the realm of the dead, then [in his resurrection] he proclaims it in the realm of the living, and then finally and universally, he proclaims it in the heavenly realm.” Matthew Y. Emerson, He Descended Into the Dead: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday (IVP Academic, 2019, pg 167).

And it really is remarkable to think about, Jesus Christ, bursting through the gates of Hades, and coming face to face with Noah. With Abraham. With David. And can you imagine it, the Second Adam coming face to face with the first Adam and the first Adam hearing “Hello, Son. You remember my voice. Your sins are forgiven. It’s time to go home.”

Practical Application: What Does This Mean?

There are two main reasons this is helpful for us to grasp.

1. It fuels Evangelism and Missions

Jesus Christ has descended into the depths, defeated death, taken up ownership of Hades. But it is only effective for those who believe. And this is our motivation to evangelize with great zeal.

Those who do not hear this gospel that has been proclaimed under the earth and on earth and in heaven will remain under the miserable burden of Death and Hades and ultimately, of Hell itself.

The message we proclaim is the same one Christ proclaimed to the Underworld and the Overworld. That He has defeated these powers. He is not the least bit intimidated by them or threatened by them. But those who have not trusted in Christ still remain under these powers. And they are on a road to an eternity where their masters will not free them, but will be tormented with them. Only Christ offers freedom. Only Christ has defeated them. Only Christ can deliver us. And that deliverance is offered only to those who repent from their sin and trust in him for salvation.

2. God has descended to bring us up

Jesus became fully human, and when he died, he fully died. He did not die on the cross and then wake up to resurrection 3 minutes later. He endured under the power of death because there was yet work to do.

And when we face death, or when our loved ones face death, we can grasp this reality that we are going where Christ has already gone for us. To quote Emmerson once more

“Just as the Ark of the Covenant went before the people of Israel through the wilderness for three days to find a place for them to rest, so Christ has gone before us through the wilderness of Hades to prepare a place for us to rest in him.” Matthew Y. Emerson, He Descended Into the Dead: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday (IVP Academic, 2019, pg 219).

And yet, he has not just experienced death, he has defeated it. Death does not have the last word. He experienced it as the God-Man, and as the God-Man defeated it. We will not remain dead just as he did not remain dead. Because he rose again, we too shall rise again on the last day and well with him forever, bodily, in the new heavens and the new earth.

And so we dig our graves and have our funerals confident in this reality that though our bodies might decompose, our souls remain with Jesus, waiting for the day when he will return with loud trumpet blasts, and reunite our bodies and souls so that we will live with him forever.

He descended into the dead. And rose up victorious, and so we shall rise up with him in his same victory.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.