Why Did Christ Descend into Hades?

[Jack Knave]

I was just wondering what the reason our resident Christians would give for the reason for this action by Christ. How does it fit in with your theology?

[ad_orientem]

In Orthodox theology, at least, it is very important. We refer to it as the Harrowing of Hell. Christ descended into Hades to preach the Gospel to the dead there which includes the OT saints, for no one had entered heaven before then. Christ then had Satan bound, the gates were broken and the way to heaven was openned up. This is depicted in our iconography with the first to be led out being Adam and Eve followed by the OT saints.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell

[Jack Knave]

In Orthodox theology, at least, it is very important. We refer to it as the Harrowing of Hell. Christ descended into Hades to preach the Gospel to the dead there which includes the OT saints, for no one had entered heaven before then. Christ then had Satan bound, the gates were broken and the way to heaven was openned up. This is depicted in our iconography with the first to be led out being Adam and Eve followed by the OT saints.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

And where did Hades come from if even Adam and Eve were sent there, who created it?

[Gonnagle]

Dear Jack,

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

Elijah, which makes me wonder about Jesus freeing OT saints from hell, are Elijah and Moses OT saints?

Gonnagle.

[ad_orientem]

Our Lord says in the Gospel some time before he descended into Hades "And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven".

[floo]

I was just wondering what the reason our resident Christians would give for the reason for this action by Christ. How does it fit in with your theology?

Maybe his 'daddy' thought he had been a naughty boy!

[DaveM]

I was just wondering what the reason our resident Christians would give for the reason for this action by Christ. How does it fit in with your theology?

The Jewish view of Sheol (the place of the dead) was that it is divided into two sections,  The upper half of Sheol was the place where the righteous dead went awaiting their release into God's immediate presence.  (In Christian thinking this was possible once Christ had paid the true price for atonement of sins). 

The lower half of Sheol was the abode of the unrighteous dead awaiting their final judgement.  From the text in Peter we would also conclude that it was likewise the abode of a number of evil spirits or demons, who had been locked up and prohibited from roaming the earth.  They were the agents of evil who  had been responsible, at the time of the flood, for seducing mankind away from God until the stage was reached (with the exception of Noah) where the earth become such a wicked place that 'every inclination of man's heart was only evil all the time (Gen 6:5).

When Jesus descended into Sheol He accomplished two things.  First those in the upper half of Sheol were released from their period of waiting and ascended with Jesus to glory.  As we find in Ephesians 4:8, 'When He ascended on high He led a host of captives -i.e those in captivity in the upper half of Sheol.  The upper half of Sheol is now empty as all the righteous dead subsequent to Calvary are taken straight to glory.

Secondly Jesus addressed the evil spirits mentioned above.  Many translations (including the KJV) state that Jesus 'preached' to them but I do not think this to be a very good translation.  The word can also mean to proclaim and I think the preferred translation, as used by the ESV, is that He, 'made proclamation to the spirits in prison'.  An analogy would be a victorious Roman general entering a captured city and proclaiming his victory, their defeat and the consequences thereof.  So Jesus would have proclaimed to the forces of evil His total victory over sin, death and evil and that their final demise was now certain.  All that was left was some mopping up operations.

I do not subscribe to the view that Jesus preached to the souls of the unrighteous dead to allow them a second opportunity to find salvation.  Much as this might sound an attractive idea it would be inconsistent with the overall thrust of Scripture. 

[Jack Knave]

Dear Jack,

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

Elijah, which makes me wonder about Jesus freeing OT saints from hell, are Elijah and Moses OT saints?

Gonnagle.

They died before Christ came so the theory says they must have been put in Hell.

[Jack Knave]

Our Lord says in the Gospel some time before he descended into Hades "And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven".

So if Elijah ascended into heaven how does that fit in with what JC said? Or where did Elijah go then?

[Sassy]

Dear Jack,

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

Elijah, which makes me wonder about Jesus freeing OT saints from hell, are Elijah and Moses OT saints?

Gonnagle.

The Saints never went to hell.
As you can see from Dives and Lazarus. One ends up in hell and the other at the bosom of Abraham with the divide.
So from hell, Dives could see Lazarus and Abraham and they could see him.
We know that at the point of Christ's death the graves of Saints opened and they were restored to life.

King James Bible

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.


Christs power over life and death is show by the immediate affect his dying had on the saints already dead.

Eternal life and the Kingdom of God are for the believer.
The Saints would not have been in hell. For they would be like the others resting in sleep awaiting the coming of the Messiah and now the return.

[floo]

Dear Jack,

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

Elijah, which makes me wonder about Jesus freeing OT saints from hell, are Elijah and Moses OT saints?

Gonnagle.

The Saints never went to hell.
As you can see from Dives and Lazarus. One ends up in hell and the other at the bosom of Abraham with the divide.
So from hell, Dives could see Lazarus and Abraham and they could see him.
We know that at the point of Christ's death the graves of Saints opened and they were restored to life.

King James Bible

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.


Christs power over life and death is show by the immediate affect his dying had on the saints already dead.

Eternal life and the Kingdom of God are for the believer.
The Saints would not have been in hell. For they would be like the others resting in sleep awaiting the coming of the Messiah and now the return.

Sass you have no evidence for your statement! You might believe it to be true, but that is a million light years from it being so.

[ad_orientem]

Dear Jack,

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

Elijah, which makes me wonder about Jesus freeing OT saints from hell, are Elijah and Moses OT saints?

Gonnagle.

The Saints never went to hell.
As you can see from Dives and Lazarus. One ends up in hell and the other at the bosom of Abraham with the divide.
So from hell, Dives could see Lazarus and Abraham and they could see him.
We know that at the point of Christ's death the graves of Saints opened and they were restored to life.

King James Bible

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.


Christs power over life and death is show by the immediate affect his dying had on the saints already dead.

Eternal life and the Kingdom of God are for the believer.
The Saints would not have been in hell. For they would be like the others resting in sleep awaiting the coming of the Messiah and now the return.

You need to elaborate what you mean by "hell". We're not using it here as the final place of everlasting torment but merely the abode of the dead (what in Greek is referred to as Hades and in Hebrew Sheol), that is, where all the dead resided before Christ descended there.

[DaveM]

Dear Jack,

Didn't someone rise up into heaven in the OT? Ezekiel?

Elijah, which makes me wonder about Jesus freeing OT saints from hell, are Elijah and Moses OT saints?

Gonnagle.

They died before Christ came so the theory says they must have been put in Hell.

No, not hell as we use the term today.  As ad-o said they went to Sheol, the place of the dead.  In their instance it would have been the upper have of Sheol, a pleasant place of conscious existence where the souls of the righteous dead went while they awaited the sacrificial death of Christ.

[bluehillside Retd.]

DaveM,

No, not hell as we use the term today.  As ad-o said they went to Sheol, the place of the dead.  In their instance it would have been the upper have of Sheol, a pleasant place of conscious existence where the souls of the righteous dead went while they awaited the sacrificial death of Christ.

I love this casuistic retro-fitting of explanations after the fact - it happens a lot in folklore and myth I think. Having decided not only that there is a god but that "He" decided on a brutal blood sacrifice for his son, presumably someone somewhere thought, "Oh hang on a mo, what are we going to do with all those nice folks who pre-deceased him? I know, we'll dream up a kind of waiting room for the undead, chuck in a few battered copies of National Geographic and Robert's yer Aunty's husband!"

It can get messy though because each time a new explanation has to be dreamed up it tends to lead to further problems with the story, and thus to ever-more convoluted explanations to get out of them. Interesting though for students of this kind of thing. 

[ad_orientem]

Oh goody! Thanks for your valuable opinion. It really added alot to the discussion. Now could you go away.

[floo]

Oh goody! Thanks for your valuable opinion. It really added alot to the discussion. Now could you go away.

But without evidence to support what is a very fanciful idea, it is right to challenge it.

[ad_orientem]

Oh goody! Thanks for your valuable opinion. It really added alot to the discussion. Now could you go away.

But without evidence to support what is a very fanciful idea, it is right to challenge it.

You don't have to believe it to make a useful contribution to the discusion. The question was why Christ descrnded into Hades. Stop trying to derail the thread.

[floo]

Oh goody! Thanks for your valuable opinion. It really added alot to the discussion. Now could you go away.

But without evidence to support what is a very fanciful idea, it is right to challenge it.

You don't have to believe it to make a useful contribution to the discusion. The question was why Christ descrnded into Hades. Stop trying to derail the thread.

You appear to be stating as a fact that Jesus went to this Hades place when he died, I was pointing out there was no evidence such a place exists.

[ad_orientem]

We already know what you think. You rabbit the same stuff over and over again. Piss off!

[Jack Knave]

I was just wondering what the reason our resident Christians would give for the reason for this action by Christ. How does it fit in with your theology?

The Jewish view of Sheol (the place of the dead) was that it is divided into two sections,  The upper half of Sheol was the place where the righteous dead went awaiting their release into God's immediate presence.  (In Christian thinking this was possible once Christ had paid the true price for atonement of sins). 

The lower half of Sheol was the abode of the unrighteous dead awaiting their final judgement.  From the text in Peter we would also conclude that it was likewise the abode of a number of evil spirits or demons, who had been locked up and prohibited from roaming the earth.  They were the agents of evil who  had been responsible, at the time of the flood, for seducing mankind away from God until the stage was reached (with the exception of Noah) where the earth become such a wicked place that 'every inclination of man's heart was only evil all the time (Gen 6:5).

When Jesus descended into Sheol He accomplished two things.  First those in the upper half of Sheol were released from their period of waiting and ascended with Jesus to glory.  As we find in Ephesians 4:8, 'When He ascended on high He led a host of captives -i.e those in captivity in the upper half of Sheol.  The upper half of Sheol is now empty as all the righteous dead subsequent to Calvary are taken straight to glory.

Secondly Jesus addressed the evil spirits mentioned above.  Many translations (including the KJV) state that Jesus 'preached' to them but I do not think this to be a very good translation.  The word can also mean to proclaim and I think the preferred translation, as used by the ESV, is that He, 'made proclamation to the spirits in prison'.  An analogy would be a victorious Roman general entering a captured city and proclaiming his victory, their defeat and the consequences thereof.  So Jesus would have proclaimed to the forces of evil His total victory over sin, death and evil and that their final demise was now certain.  All that was left was some mopping up operations.

I do not subscribe to the view that Jesus preached to the souls of the unrighteous dead to allow them a second opportunity to find salvation.  Much as this might sound an attractive idea it would be inconsistent with the overall thrust of Scripture.

Thank you for that. You don't often get a decent answer on this forum but that was more than what I expected.

My perspective on things is a Jungianesque one, that is an archetypal psychology approach. What you said fits in with this in symbolic terms and I would agree, again in a symbolic perspective, that Christ would have stated how things were going to be or how they will be arranged and set-up to the ones in the lower chamber. In psychological terms preaching to them to try and get them to 'repent' would be an absurd position to take.

Do you know how the Catholic's purgatory fits in with all this?

[DaveM]

Thank you for that. You don't often get a decent answer on this forum but that was more than what I expected.

My perspective on things is a Jungianesque one, that is an archetypal psychology approach. What you said fits in with this in symbolic terms and I would agree, again in a symbolic perspective, that Christ would have stated how things were going to be or how they will be arranged and set-up to the ones in the lower chamber. In psychological terms preaching to them to try and get them to 'repent' would be an absurd position to take.

Do you know how the Catholic's purgatory fits in with all this?

Thank you for those comments.  I do appreciate them.

I do not really have any serious argument in adopting a symbolic approach to many Scripture passages, particularly those dealing with matters which lie beyond the grave. Life beyond this present one is also one which is outside time and the restrictions of the present physical world that we live in.  But our understanding and thinking is very much limited by the environment in which we find ourselves.  So the Scriptures need to use physical examples to help us get some insights into these spiritual realities.  But we are on dangerous grounds when we start insisting on imposing literal interpretations.  Rather we need to focus on understanding the important ‘truths’ which are being conveyed by the passage.

From a Christian perspective some of the truths which can perhaps be gleaned from this passage in Peter (and some others) include that there is on-going spiritual awareness after death.  For the believer this includes a far heightened awareness of being in the nearer presence of Christ while for the unrighteous (and I use this term deliberately rather than unbeliever) there is a far heightened awareness of separation from Christ.  Also that there is an ultimate judgement on the latter.

Being a good (bad AM might say) Presbyterian I do not agree with the Catholic teaching on purgatory but am not really in a position to comment on it.  Perhaps ad_o, who probably has a better understanding of Catholic doctrine, may have some useful insights here from his Orthodox perspective.

[floo]

From a Christian perspective some of the truths which can perhaps be gleaned from this passage in Peter (and some others) include that there is on-going spiritual awareness after death.  For the believer this includes a far heightened awareness of being in the nearer presence of Christ while for the unrighteous (and I use this term deliberately rather than unbeliever) there is a far heightened awareness of separation from Christ.  Also that there is an ultimate judgement on the latter.
 

I am not sure what that means in reality? As a kid and a believer, at no time did I have any sense of the presence of Jesus, even though I wanted it then. As one of the 'unrighteous' these days, whatever that actually means, I have absolutely no sense of separation as I believe him to be long dead.

[DaveM]

From a Christian perspective some of the truths which can perhaps be gleaned from this passage in Peter (and some others) include that there is on-going spiritual awareness after death.  For the believer this includes a far heightened awareness of being in the nearer presence of Christ while for the unrighteous (and I use this term deliberately rather than unbeliever) there is a far heightened awareness of separation from Christ.  Also that there is an ultimate judgement on the latter.
 

I am not sure what that means in reality? As a kid and a believer, at no time did I have any sense of the presence of Jesus, even though I wanted it then. As one of the 'unrighteous' these days, whatever that actually means, I have absolutely no sense of separation as I believe him to be long dead.

Are you related to Lord Nelson by any chance?  Try putting the telescope to your other eye. 

[floo]

From a Christian perspective some of the truths which can perhaps be gleaned from this passage in Peter (and some others) include that there is on-going spiritual awareness after death.  For the believer this includes a far heightened awareness of being in the nearer presence of Christ while for the unrighteous (and I use this term deliberately rather than unbeliever) there is a far heightened awareness of separation from Christ.  Also that there is an ultimate judgement on the latter.
 

I am not sure what that means in reality? As a kid and a believer, at no time did I have any sense of the presence of Jesus, even though I wanted it then. As one of the 'unrighteous' these days, whatever that actually means, I have absolutely no sense of separation as I believe him to be long dead.

Are you related to Lord Nelson by any chance?  Try putting the telescope to your other eye. 

What are you talking about?

[Nearly Sane]

Just to note Alan Burns is RC, so could give that perspective.