A bit of the Apostle’s Creed at church always confused me. Referring to the resurrection, it says that:
…He (Jesus) descended into hell
On the third day he rose again
And ascended into Heaven
Where he is seated at the right hand of God
I believe the “descent to hell for three days” bit is also in a gospel or two. What’s this meant to mean? Was he supposed to be fighting the devil etc? Is hell a mistranslation?
Disclaimer - This is a GQ, I don’t hold any particular religious beliefs and am not witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus etc.
Jesus descended into hell, in order to retrieve people like Moses, Adam and Eve, and others from the Bible that were living in the part of hell called “Limbo”. Since he had not died on the cross when they died it was necessary for him to make a special effort to see that they made it to Heaven.
I’m a recovering Catholic and was taught that Jesus went to Hell — or Limbo — to bring the souls of the good people out and lead them to Heaven. They did not go to Hell as a punishment, but because they could not go to Heaven without Jesus (He did say He was the way, the truth, the light, and something about no one could enter heaven without Him).
There is no Biblical source for this, at least not that I’m aware of. I haven’t read all the letters and epistles, but I know it’s not in the Gospels. Nor am I aware of the source of that, or a lot of other things Catholics believe. I guess I left the church too soon.
This comes from one passage of scripture in 1 Peter 3:18-20.
“He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.”
This idea is also somewhat hinted at in Acts 2:27-31, but to me that passage isn’t as relevant to this discussion.
From what I have read, there are two main theories.
Jesus went to the prison where the spirits of the fallen angels were held. These angels appear to have had unnatural relations with women in the days before the flood. The angels/women relation is another unclear interpretation, so it is hard to say. Scriptures relating to this are Genesis 6:1-5 , 2 Peter 2:4-5, and Jude 6.
Jesus went to the place of the dead and preached to Noah’s contemporaries.
Jesus didn’t really go, but went “through” the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Holy Trinity). I am not nearly as familiar with this interpretation and so I won’t comment on it anymore.
As far as I can tell, very few or no protestant denominations believe Jesus went to the Hell as in the fire and brimstone Hell. Though it is not specifically about this passage, this quote from a website sums up what is generally taught with respect to the word Hell used in the Bible…
“Further impetus for confusion was generated by the English translations of the 16th and 17th centuries, due to translator confusion regarding the technical distinctions that exist between the pertinent Greek terms. Specifically, the Greek term hades generally was equated with gehenna. Hades refers to the intermediate state of the dead (disembodied spirits) who are awaiting the Judgment. Gehenna, on the other hand, refers to the location of the final state of the wicked after the Judgment. This confusion culminated in the King James Version’s rendering of hades as “hell” in all ten of its occurrences in the New Testament (Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27,31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13,14). Rendering hades as “hell” in Acts 2:27,31 leaves the reader with the impression that when Jesus exited His physical body on the cross, He went to hell. The first English translation to maintain the distinction between hades and gehenna was the English Revised Version and its subsequent American counterpart, the American Standard Version of 1901 (Lewis, 1981, p. 64).”
The word that is translated as “Hell” in 1 Peter 3:19 is the Greek word hades, which is usually used as a holding place, not a place of torment.
Any way you cut it, the protestant interpretation is that Jesus went to preach and/or give a victory speech to spirits (whether they are humans or fallen angles) in hades. They do not interpret Jesus in any kind of physical torment. Jesus endured all of the torment and paid for all of the sins of the world while on the cross.
As for the Roman Catholic interpretation, I have no idea.
By the expression “He descended into hell”, the Apostles’ Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil “who has the power of death” (Heb 2:14).
In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him. (the key there being the limiting phrase “the just”).
There was a discussion on this issue several months ago on this thread: So, did Jesus go to Hell or not?. I think there was a more recent one as well, but couldn’t find it on the search engine.
According to Dante, as I recall, Jesus stopped by Hell to pull a few people—Moses, virtuous Jews (I think), people like that—up to Heaven with him.
He left Aristotle and Plato down there, though. And, one would suppose, all of Asia and the Americas’ dead. (Well, at least they’re in the fairly non-sucky part of Hell. That part without the locusts and centaurs and lava and stuff.)
Ranchoth
(And most of Africa. And Northern Europe. And Ireland. And India…)
For whatever it’s worth, as a lifelong Catholic, with 13 years of Roman Catholic schooling (Kindergarten through senior year of high school), I never heard the story of Jesus literally going to Hell as anything but a poetic idea of Dante’s.
The explanation I was given when I was taught the Creed as a child was that this was merely an instance of antique language, and, as several posters have already explained, means only that he descended among the dead. As Catholic theology holds that Hell is a state of existence marked by alienation from God’s love, and not a physical territory, the other interpretation would not seem to make much sense from a Catholic perspective.
Incidentally, while I know a great many of my classmates in grade school got the idea that Limbo was some kind of defined place or state the same as Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, my understanding is that “limbo” was used in its usual meaning; a state of uncertainty, something which is not clear or decided.