Did Christ Descend into Hell?

 

This being Easter weekend my thoughts are on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s not a coincidence that the Holy Spirit had me research the topic of what Jesus did in the time after he died and rose again. I’m becoming a little more scholarly in my reading of the Bible over the last year or so. No I’m not reading the New Testament in Greek, or the Old Testament in Hebrew. But I’m more curious than before; the curiosity leads me to do a little study to find out what’s in the Bible that I haven’t encountered before.

My question for today: Did Christ decent into the lower parts of the earth after death and free the imprisoned souls from Abraham’s bosom? I think the short answer is No. I ran across a few dissenting views that assumed Paul’s phrase in Ephesians 4:8 was a reference to the birth of Christ. “When He ascended on high, He took many captives and gave many gifts to His people.” It’s originally found in Psalm 68:18, Paul also adds “He ascended” –what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?’

I think the when it says ‘He descended’ it’s a reference to Christ going to Sheol (Old Testament Hades) to rescue the imprisoned captives. But the Zondervan opinion I read gave a convincing definition that Paul is talking about Christ coming to earth as an infant. That’s the “descended” part of it. It’s based on the definition of the phrase from Psalm. Instead of “lower parts of the earth” it should, according to this opinion, say “lower parts which are the earth. I didn’t check on the Greek to verify so I’ll have to take his word for it.

Of course that changes it significantly from something below the earth, like Sheol, to just another word for earth.

The second verse scholars point to is from I Peter 3:18-20.

 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. ¹⁹ After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— ²⁰ to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.”

Who are the imprisoned spirits? According to Zondervan the best explanation is that Christ in Spirit, was preaching to the hostile people during Noah’s time. This is a paraphrase of what Augustine said, according to the Zondervan passage. It’s not convincing to me though because God the Father used prophets to preach to the unbelievers. I’m unaware of another passage that describes Christ preaching in spirit before His time. God had other means of sharing with people.

But if I take this passage to mean that Christ went to hell to preach to the imprisoned spirits, are they the spirits of men or of demons? They can’t be angels because angels can’t sin. Demons fell with Lucifer so I don’t think this is about them. It’s unclear what he is preaching to them though. He does make a proclamation. That sounds to me like a new statement of principles. From this day forward and so on.

I remember my Dad telling me that Jesus went to hell and took to the keys of Hades and death from Satan. You might read that in Revelation 1:18 where Jesus tells John “I have the keys of Hades and Death.” It was the first time I’d thought about it. I just assumed He died and rose again, with nothing happening in those days between His death and resurrection. But even if Jesus met with the Father, To be absent from the body is to present with the Lord, it doesn’t really make a difference. It doesn’t change what He did.

But this added element of Jesus telling the thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43) doesn’t sound like Heaven necessarily. Is Paradise not Abraham’s Bosom, the place near Hades that souls of the righteous departed await the resurrection? In Luke 16:19-31 the story of the rich man who spots Abraham and asks him to send Lazarus to dip his fingers in water, is suffering in Hades. Abraham refuses because of the life the rich man led, but also because of the gulf that resides between both dimensions. “…between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” Here was a resource I used that supported the claim Christ descended into hell. 

This section of Luke provides the scriptural basis for a holding realm. At least some people think it does. They also believe that Jesus was saying to the thief, I’ll see you there with the others who are awaiting My victory. After reading some of the supposed passages that support Christ’s descent into hell, I’m less convinced that it went down this way. But like always, I’ll wait for other revelations or interpretations of scripture.

Most of this is esoteric stuff but it interests me just the same. I own a book called Bible Doctrine by Wayne Grudem. It’s a rich source of Christian beliefs with a scriptural grounding. I won’t say I subscribe to all of it but it gives me a foundation place to start.