In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess that Jesus “was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.”
I want to focus with you today particularly on
the claim that after his death and burial, Jesus descended to the dead.
A similar belief is affirmed in the Church of
England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.
It’s remarkable that earlier generations thought
the descent of Christ to the dead important enough to be included in creeds and
confessions, but I suspect we may not have given it much thought – until today!
Some translations of the creed say that Jesus
descended to “hell”, but that would be misleading for us since we use that word
“hell” to speak of a place of torment, of the punishment of the damned.
The creed just means that Jesus descended to
the place of the dead.
If we have preconceived ideas about Jesus’ descent to hell, maybe from art works,
we may have to put out of our minds what whatever we think the harrowing of
hell might mean.
We’ll think about what Jesus’ descent might
mean, but let’s back track for a moment and think also about Jesus’
crucifixion, death and burial.
Reading: John 19:28-end
It’s very important for us to emphasise the
full and true humanity of Jesus.
We know he was fully human and fully divine.
And it’s very hard for us to grasp what it
means, what it was like, for him to be the God-Man.
We’re speaking of a unique miracle here, that
God the Son should assume a human nature at the incarnation so that (without
change in God), God the Son was made man.
But one thing we must say is that Jesus’ full
divinity didn’t undermine his true humanity.
He wasn’t somehow half God and half man.
It’s not a trade off of percentages.
Jesus was fully God and fully man.
So Jesus’ human life was true and real.
And so was his human death.
Of course in some ways Jesus’ death was
unique, but he really died a true human death as a man, a death like ours.
The gospels underline that.
It was essential for our salvation that Jesus
should really die a true human death.
Jesus was born to die:
He faced the penalty for human sin as a man –
human death.
Jesus could only rise from the dead if he
truly died.
And not only did he die, he also was dead.
Part of Jesus’ full humanity is not only his
dying but his being dead.
He shared our state of death.
He wasn’t instantly resurrected.
We should not rush too quickly from Good
Friday to Easter Sunday.
Jesus’ body was laid in the tomb for three
days, just like our bodies will be buried.
Perhaps there is more to be said some other time about the
details of Jesus’ burial in the unused tomb of a rich man hewn from the rock in
a garden and who does what to his body, wrapping it in linen garments, and so
on.
And of course it matters for the historicity of Jesus’
resurrection, for the fact that his body is risen, that eyewitnesses knew where
it had been buried.
Jesus died and was buried.
As the prophet Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man was three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth.
The word “cemetery” means “sleeping place” and
our bodies will sleep in the grave as they await the great final day when they
will be raised up and re-united with our souls.
And so it was for Jesus for those three days
from Friday to Sunday.
He too knew that time of waiting, of the
separation of body and soul.
His human experience was parallel to ours to
the full extent, right down to the depths – really.
His body was planted in the ground like a seed
awaiting the resurrection, as our bodies will be.
Jesus’ three days in the tomb remind us that
so much of the Christian life is about patient waiting and looking forward to
the great day of Resurrection.
Salvation is accomplished, but we await its
full fruit.
Of course there is much striving and effort
and work to the Christian life.
It is a race and a battle and so on.
But it is also a matter of resting the
finished work of Christ.
There is a sabbath rest for the people of God
both now in part and fully and finally in the New Creation.
For now we must wait in hope for the Lord’s
salvation.
Christians are traditionally buried facing
East, awaiting the return of Christ, looking in hope for the coming of the Sun
of Righteousness and the dawn of the great final day, when night will be no more.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves!
Back to the cross.
It is Good Friday, after all!
Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is
finished!”
Not “I’m finished”, but my atoning work of
dying on the cross is finished.
The price for sin was fully paid – salvation is
achieved, accomplished.
It is DONE.
As Jesus’ body rests in the tomb he takes his
Sabbath rest having completed his work of salvation.
Jesus rested from all his work of saving, and
it was very good.
When he rises, on Resurrection Day, it will be
a new week and a new Creation.
Calvin came up with a more or less novel
understanding of Jesus’ descent to the dead, or Hades, or Hell.
He took it to mean that Jesus faced hell for
us on the cross.
That’s an odd understanding of the creed
because the creed speaks of death, burial then descent.
On Calvin’s understanding, the creed seems to
get the order wrong.
But even if Calvin is wrong about how to
understand the descent of Christ to the dead, it is certainly right that Jesus
bore our hell on the cross.
The wrath of God was poured out on the
innocent Jesus for us.
As the sin-bearer, Jesus was forsaken to the
judgement of God, so that we might know God’s blessing.
Jesus faced the frown of God that we might
know his smile.
In his perfect and infinite person, Jesus paid
many eternities of hell for all who would trust in him.
An eternity of sin was spent on Jesus that
Good Friday.
* * *
Jesus’ body was three days in the tomb.
But what of his soul?
He said to the dying thief, “today you will be
with me in paradise.”
Our second reading, where the Apostle Peter
quotes from Psalm 16, also sheds some more light on this:
Reading: Acts 2:22-36
Peter says that in the Psalm David must be prophesying
the Messiah: “you will not abandon my soul in Hades, neither will you let your
holy one see decay.”
We know that David’s body decayed.
Human death is the separation of soul and
body.
Jesus’ body lay in the tomb for three days
awaiting the resurrection, as our own bodies will lay in the grave awaiting our
resurrection.
And yet Jesus’ soul could be with the dying
thief that day in paradise.
The Christian confession has almost always
been that Jesus’ human soul went to the place of the righteous dead when he
died, sometimes known as paradise, sometimes called “Abraham’s bosom”, which
Jesus refers to in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
Jesus shared a full human experience not just
of dying but of being dead.
He went down to the very depths of the lower
earthly regions, to the place of the dead or to Hades.
But he went there now as the Victor, and the
one who had paid the price of sin, as the one who had triumphed over death.
Whatever we make exactly of this doctrine of
the descent of Christ, the Bible tells us that the keys of death and Hades are
given to Jesus.
He rules over Satan, and death, and the place
of the dead, and even over hell.
He is the Lord of life who has opened the gate
of heaven.
All those who have ever died and hoped in him
are with him in heaven.
And one day our bodies and souls will be
reunited and we will be raised.
We will be like the risen Lord Jesus who, body
and soul, is seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.
* * *
Our final reading is one of the texts most
often connected with Jesus’ descent to the dead.
It could be read in other ways, and the
doctrine of the descent of Christ to the dead doesn’t depend on it, but in the
light of the Scriptures we’ve read and alluded it, it’s not outlandish to see
here a proclamation of Christ’s victory after his death:
Reading: 1 Peter 3:18-end
Jesus’ death means that he can announce
victory over the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago.
Even those under the earth must bow the knee
to Jesus the Lord.
Jesus is Lord even of hell and the fallen
angels.
Satan is cast down and crushed.
And the risen Jesus is now gone into heaven
and is at God’s right hand with angels, authorities and powers in submission to
him.
The Old Testament saints waited in hope for
the coming of Christ, but now his saving work is accomplished.
Their waiting is transformed into reality.
The one they longed for and hoped in from afar
has arrived with all the benefits of his cross.
He has come!
He has done it!
And all the dead who trust in him are with him
in heaven.
Jesus has triumphed and brought his people
with him.
His victory is our victory.
What he has won is our destiny.
We share in the spoils of his triumph.
This Good Friday, then, we meditate also on
Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, and on the Ascension of Christ, his reign in
heaven and on great final day to come.
I want to conclude our reflections today with
some words from Charles Hill:
“Christ descended into Hades so that you and I
would not have to.
Christ descended to Hades so that we might
ascend to heaven.
Christ entered the realm of the dead, the
realm of the strong enemy, and came away with his keys.
The keys of Death and Hades are now in our
Savior’s hands.
And God his Father has exalted him to his
right hand, and given him another key, the key of David, the key to the
heavenly Jerusalem.
He opens and no one will shut, he shuts and no
one will open (Rev. 3.7).
And praise to him, as the hymn says, “For he
hath opened the heavenly door, and man is blessed forever more.”
All praise and honour and glory to the Lamb
who has conquered!
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord
henceforth” (Rev. 14.13).
And blessed are we here and now, who even now
have this hope, and a fellowship with our Savior which is stronger than death!
Thanks be to God. Amen.”
(Hill, ‘He
Descended into Hell’, 10, quoted in Emerson, He Descended to the Dead, p221)
The Apostles’ Creed
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 to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
* * *
All of the above is very much indebted to:
Matthew Emerson, He Descended To The Dead:
An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday (IVP Academic, 2019)
Some further jottings:
What the descent of Christ to the dead means
to teach is the Jesus experienced human death as all human do, his body was
buried, and his soul departed to the place of the righteous dead, sometimes
known as paradise or Abraham’s bosom, and in so doing, by virtue of his
divinity, he defeated death and the grave. (Emerson, p23f).
Jesus proclaimed victory over death.
It would certainly be a mistake to move too
quickly from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.
We need to face the full force of death: the
reality and pain of it.
The grief.
The loss.
The apparent finality.
He was buried.
We live between the death and resurrection of
Jesus, on the one hand, and his return and the consummation of all things on
the other.
Our life is lived in these in-between times.
So much of the Christian life involves looking
forward in hope and waiting in expectation for what God will do.
And for Jesus too there was an element of
waiting.
He died on Good Friday and for that Holy
Saturday his body waited in the tomb.
He descended to the dead.
He descended from heaven.
He descended to the cross.
He descended to the dead.
Down, down, down.
He went as low as he could go, to the very
depths.
Matthew Emerson: “The descent [of Christ to
the dead] is, in my opinion, a beautiful doctrine that not only fits into the
fabric of Christian theology but is also integral to that fabric. While some
may believe we can simply discard the descent, it is my conviction that this
doctrine, held ubiquitously for the first 1500 years of the church’s life, is
an integral one for the health of Christian theology and practice.” (21)
Matthew 12:40 - The Sign of Jonah – see
Emerson p35f – Woodhouse: “The primary meaning of the ‘sign of Jonah’… is … the
correspondence between Jonah’s experience in the belly of the sea creature, and
Jesus’ experience in death, his descent to Hades.” Quoted in Emerson p38
Matthew 27:52-53
Ephesians 4:8-10
Lk 23:43
2 Cor 12:3
1 Cor 15:20, 27 – from the dead, from the
place of the dead
Phil 2:10
Romans 10:7
Revelation 1:18
“Christ’s descent, then, is part of what Christ
experiences for us in the incarnation. Death, both the moment of dying and the
state of being dead, is a universal human experience, and Christ experiences it
with us and for us.” (Emerson, p57)
Typical Roman Catholic view – Emerson, p87
Calvin argued that Christ experienced hell on
the cross for sinners (see Emerson, p91f).
This is of course true, but Calvin is novel in
thinking this is what the Creed means by saying Christ descended to Hades.
Institutes,
vol 1, p511ff
The order of the creed is very odd if this is
what it means since it affirms that Christ died, was buried and descended to
the dead
The Heidelberg Catechism Question 44:
44. Q. Why is there added: He descended
into hell?
A. In my greatest sorrows and temptations
I may be assured and comforted that my Lord Jesus Christ, by His unspeakable
anguish, pain, terror, and agony, which He endured throughout all His
sufferings [1] but especially on the cross, has delivered me from the anguish
and torment of hell.[2]
[1] Ps. 18:5, 6; 116:3; Matt.
26:36-46; 27:45, 46; Heb. 5:7-10. [2] Is. 53.
The Thirty-Nine Articles – Article 3:
The Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 27
Q. 27. Wherein did
Christ’s humiliation consist?
A. Christ’s
humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition [a], made
under the law [b], undergoing the miseries of this life [c], the wrath of God
[d], and the cursed death of the cross [e]; in being buried, and continuing
under the power of death for a time. [f]
[a]. Luke
2:7; 2
Cor. 8:9; Gal.
4:4
[b]. Gal.
4:4
[c]. Isa.
53:3; Luke
9:58; John
4:6; 11:35; Heb.
2:18
[d]. Ps.
22:1 (Matt.
27:46); Isa.
53:10; 1
John 2:2
[f]. Matt.
12:40; 1
Cor. 15:3-4
The Westminster Larger Catechism Question 50
Q50: Wherein consisted Christ’s humiliation after his
death?
A50: Christ’s humiliation after his death consisted
in his being buried,[1] and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the
power of death till the third day;[2] which hath been otherwise expressed in
these words, he descended into hell.
1. I Cor. 15:3-4
2. Psa. 16:10; Acts 2:24-27, 31; Rom. 6:9; Matt. 12:40
Summary Emerson, p99ff, 102, esp. 103
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