Last week’s sermon looked at the most controversial part of the Apostles’ Creed: ‘he descended into hell’. The question is, what does this mean?
To many, it means Jesus literally descended into the realm (physical/spiritual?) of hell, where Satan, his minions and all non-believers will suffer God’s eternal punishment. The rationale is that if the punishment for Sin is Hell, Jesus must have at least visited there to take that punishment for us. However, there are several problems with this theory.
Firstly, nowhere does the Bible declare that Jesus went to Hell between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. While it admits that Jesus went to ‘Hades’, which is best translated as the place of the dead (i.e. the ground), it is nowhere said that Jesus went to ‘Gehenna’; the place of punishment. Rather, John 16:17 suggests Jesus was with the Father between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, in heaven.
Secondly, the punishment for Sin is an eternity in Hell. It makes no sense that a 3-day visit can adequately atone for an eternity in Hell for all his people?
Thirdly, 1 Peter 3:19 speaks of Jesus visiting ‘the spirits in prison’. The context however is a speaking tour; not eternal punishment. The likely explanation is 1 Peter 1:11, in which the Spirit of Christ is said to be present in the prophets of the OT, including the people of Noah’s day (1 Peter 3:19).
Instead, we are to believe Jesus suffered Hell on the cross, where His Father forsook him. The cross is the first time in all of eternity that the Father and the Son did not have a perfectly loving relationship. The infinite agony he Godhead suffered at that time is beyond human comprehension.
While pockets of the Anglican Church have changed the Apostles’ Creed to read ‘he descended to the dead’, to avoid confusion over this matter, Christians can say the original ‘he descended into hell’ with confidence, knowing Jesus descended into Hell on the cross.
