He Descended Into Hell
Yesterday was Good Friday. It is a day of looking back to the events surrounding the crucifixion of our Lord, and reminding ourselves why he laid down his life. It was not enough for Jesus to be our role model, nor for him to instruct us morally, but rather he had to purchase his people at a cost. The curse of death has plagued humanity since the garden, and for all of us, death is looming as an ominous cloud in the future. We know not when it will come, but we know that it will come.
Jesus deals with death upon the cross and strikes the fatal wound, but he has more work to do before his resurrection. In the Apostle's Creed, we reflect upon the work of Christ by reciting these lines,
"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
The third day he rose again from the dead
He ascended into heaven
And is seated at the right hand of God
The Father Almighty"1
So what is it that Jesus accomplishes in his descent into hell? Why does the creed include that? And why do most evangelicals express a great deal of shock when they stumble upon this line in the creed?
Misconceptions
There are many misunderstandings about the doctrine of hell, but I do not endeavor to answer any of those here. Rather, we must resolve a brief tension in the term hell as it is found in the creed. What did the church mean as it described Jesus descending into hell?
The term hell in the creed should not conjure up for you images of torment and suffering, because that is not what the word meant when it was originally written. All languages express change over time. A generation ago, the term queer would mean strange or peculiar, but in its usage today it almost exclusively refers to sexual orientation. Understanding that words can change in meaning over hundreds of years helps us to understand a bit of what is going on in the creed.
I will spare you the Greek, but there are a few terms in the New Testament corpus which can refer to the afterlife: Gehenna, Tartarus, Hades, Abraham's bosom, and paradise. There is also one term we find regularly in the Old Testament corpus which refers to the realm after earthly death: Sheol. Only one of these terms corresponds to what we mean in English today when we say "hell" and that is Gehenna. The Apostle's creed is not teaching us that Jesus died on the cross and then went to Gehenna to endure further punishment and torment. Gehenna is only the place where the unrighteous dead go. Perhaps a brief explanation is needed on the afterlife in first-century Jewish thought.
Sheol
In the Old Testament, anyone who dies is going to Sheol. Both righteous and unrighteous individuals go to the realm of the dead (Sheol) regardless of their relationship with Yahweh. In Korah's rebellion, the rebels are judged by God by being sent to Sheol, "But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD… So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly." (Num. 16:30,33).
Yet, the righteous also go to Sheol in their death. Jacob mourns for Joseph and says, "And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into Sheol unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him." (Gen. 37:35). What differs for the righteous is that their descent into Sheol is not a permanent one. They will be rescued from Sheol. Consider the hope of the Psalmist, "But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol: for he shall receive me. Selah." (Ps. 49:15), and the hope of David, "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol" (Ps. 16:10), and the promise of God to his covenant people, "I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death." (Hos. 13:14).
It is with these dual expectations, of both the righteous and the unrighteous going to Sheol, that the early Jewish thinkers concluded it is not the same kind of experience for everyone who goes. The righteous in Sheol go to Abraham's bosom or paradise so that in their disembodied state of death they are comforted, whereas the unrighteous dead are in torment in Sheol. In the New Testament, this is seen most notably in Luke 16 when we see that at death, "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." (Luke 16:22–23).
So in the New Testament, Hades corresponds to Sheol, it can be a general descriptor of life in the realm of the dead, yet it should not be understood narrowly as a place of torment. There are more narrow words that can be used. Gehenna refers only to the unrighteous dead's experience in Sheol, and paradise refers to the righteous dead's experience in Sheol.
Tartarus
For the more astute readers, you will recognize that there is one other term that has not yet been dealt with that is also used to refer to the afterlife – Tartarus. It only appears once in the New Testament, "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment" (2 Pet. 2:4). This final abode of the dead is likened to Gehenna, but is the lowest realm of the dead, being reserved for the angelic rebels who stand against God. Every time a demon is cast out in the New Testament, it is likely that this is where they are headed. Much like Hades, Tartarus is a temporary holding block that exists only until the final judgment.
Getting Back on Track
What then does the creed mean when it says Jesus made his descent into Hell? It means something more like Hades. Jesus descended into Sheol, the realm of the dead because his work of liberating the righteous dead into the presence of the Father was now being done. When Jesus dies he experiences a human death in every respect, his soul was separated from his body, and while his physical body lay in the tomb, his soul descended into the realm of the dead. Obviously, he does not go there to endure further suffering, so then his words to the thief on the cross ring true, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43). Jesus goes to Abraham's bosom to visit all the righteous dead and spring them from Hades.
Here I find C.S. Lewis to be masterful in his envisioning of this. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe after Aslan comes back to life, he first goes to the Witch's castle. There he locates all those who died in faithful service to him against the Witch who have been turned to stone, and he liberates them from their condition. When he finishes, Lewis writes, "But at last the ransacking of the Witch's fortress was ended." Or to put it in the way Paul does, "Therefore it says, 'When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.' (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)" (Eph. 4:8–10.)
During this time, he also proclaims his victory over all those who rebelled against him, "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" (1 Pet. 3:18–20). This is to prefigure the reality that even those under the earth will bow to King Jesus. (Phil. 2:10).
In his descent into Hades, Jesus does something climactic in his work of salvation, not only does he merit the redemption of all those who follow after his death upon the cross, but he goes to the dead to reconcile those righteous saints of the Old Testament out of Hades. Or in other words, he does not abandon their souls to Sheol but liberates them from it.
The Significance
You might be reading along and wondering to yourself, "Yes, this is indeed very interesting, but it does not have much to do with me." Well, dear reader, I will try to make my case now that this does have much to do with you. Jesus' experience of a real human death in one sense gives us comfort, because he goes before us into death. When Christians today go to die, we do not go alone, but with the knowledge that our Lord has gone before us and has triumphed in victory over death (Rev. 1:18). This is an immense source of comfort for us who still await death, for our hope is more sure than that of the saints of old. We have a more assured realization that death does not triumph over the faithful.
He has made more certain our hope, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me" (Ps. 23:4). Our Lord has triumphed. He has sprung the prisoners free. He has bound the strong man and divided his spoil (Luke 11:21–22). This is what we remember today. That Christ has emptied Hades of its righteous occupancy. This constitutional change of the afterlife happens after Christ's descent. Those who die today do not go down to Sheol, but directly into the presence of God (2 Cor. 5:8). It is with this confidence that we look forward to Sunday. His death was like ours in every way, and thus we can expect our resurrection to also be like his in every way.
As found in The New City Catechism