He Descended Into Hell, Part 2

So if we’re not going to tamper with the Creed by editing out the descent clause, or by reinterpreting it metaphorically, how should we understand it?

Now right at the outset I need to clear up some confusion about the word “hell.”  When we hear the word “hell,” we usually think of the place of final judgment. We think of the Lake of Fire where the lost are sent to be punished eternally for their sins. So when the Creed says that Jesus descended into hell, we might think he entered the place where the wicked are punished in unquenchable fire. But this is not at all what the Creed is talking about.

What’s going on here? The problem is a linguistic one. It has to do with the way important theological words got translated from Hebrew to Greek, from Greek to Latin, and from Latin to English. It’s a long story, but the short version is this:  the English word “hell” can be used to refer to two very different things.  Nowadays, it refers to the place of final judgment, after the resurrection. But originally, “hell” meant the realm of the dead, the interim place where souls go after death before the resurrection.

English has one word for two different concepts, resulting in much confusion. But the Bible itself uses different words. When the Bible talks about the place of final judgment after the resurrection, the word most commonly used is Gehenna. That’s the word Jesus used when he warned about the fires of Hell. In the Book of Revelation, the place of final judgment after the resurrection is called the Lake of Fire.

But when the Bible talks about the place of provisional judgment before the resurrection, Gehenna is not the word used. In the Old Testament, the interim realm of departed souls was called “Sheol.” For example, when Jacob’s sons brought Joseph’s coat of many colors to him, torn and with blood on it, Jacob thought that Joseph was dead. He refused to be comforted and said, “I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning” (Gen 37:35). The word Sheol is used 65 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. In 61 of those 65 occurrences, the Septuagint translators used the Greek word “Hades” to render the Hebrew word “Sheol.” The word Hades already had connotations from Greek mythology. Hades was both the name of the god who ruled in the underworld and the name of the underworld itself. When referring to the underworld itself, Hades could be a name for the gloomy dungeon of torment for bad people. Or, it could also be used in a neutral sense for the realm of the dead, whether good or bad. Because it was so similar to the biblical view of the afterlife, the Septuagint translators borrowed this word Hades to render the Hebrew word Sheol. Thus, Sheol and Hades are the same thing. It refers to the neutral place where all departed souls go, whether good and bad, whether saved or lost. The key point is that Sheol/Hades is a neutral concept, and is totally distinct from the negative concept of Hell or Gehenna.

And just as in the Greek pagan view, the biblical view is that Hades is subdivided into two sections, one for the saved and one for the lost. This is the view presupposed by Jesus in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Although they both went to Hades when they died, these two men had very different experiences there. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s Bosom. The rich man also died and he also went to Hades, but he was in torment in a place that was separated from Abraham’s Bosom by an uncrossable chasm.

(For more on the historical development of a “two-section” Hades in post-OT Judaism, see the excellent article by Joachim Jeremias on ᾅδης in Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.)

It should also be pointed out that “Sheol” in Hebrew becomes “Hades” in Greek, and “Hades” in Greek becomes “Infernum” in Latin, which is the word used in the Apostles’ Creed (descendit ad inferna). In the Vulgate, most occurrences of “Sheol” in the OT or “Hades” in the NT are rendered “Infernum,” i.e., the underworld.

So when we recite the Creed and say that Christ “descended into hell,” we aren’t saying that he descended into Gehenna or the Lake of Fire. Instead, we’re affirming that he descended to the underworld, the realm of the dead, called “Sheol” in Hebrew and “Hades” in Greek. The Bible teaches that between the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection on the third day, his body was laid in the tomb and his human soul went to Hades, the place where all souls go after death prior to the day of judgment.

This is clear from Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, where Peter quotes Psalm 16 and applies it to Jesus. In its original setting, Psalm 16 is a psalm of confidence in which David expresses his certainty that God will not abandon his soul in Hades. But here’s the interesting part. Peter says that David wasn’t really talking about himself. Peter reasons that David died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. So he couldn’t have been talking about himself. Rather, since David was a prophet, and since he knew that God had promised him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, David actually foresaw the future and spoke about the resurrection of Christ. When David said, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades,” he was speaking the words that Jesus himself would one day take up on his lips. So this is a crucial proof text for the statement in the Creed that Jesus descended into Hades.

Now just to be clear, Jesus did not go to that portion of Hades that is the lot of the wicked, the place of provisional punishment. Rather he went to that portion of Hades that is the lot of the righteous, the place of joy in the presence of God. This good part of Hades is also called “Paradise” or “Abraham’s Bosom.” That’s why Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).

My third post will address the question, "What did Jesus do in Hades?"

Comments

[Solomon Li]

Great follow up Lee! Thanks for the insightful historical and linguistic study. It makes me feel like we in modern society need an asterisk for a lot of things to explain what we believe.

It's definitely good work.