The Apostles’ Creed offers Christians a helpful outline of the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Second Article, which confesses Jesus Christ, covers his conception, birth, suffering, death and burial, his rising and ascending and coming again to judge the living and the dead. This corresponds roughly to the church year, beginning with a season of Advent, then Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter. Later this week, we will mark 40 days from Easter with Ascension Day, and commemorate his return to the throne of the Father. Please join us for that special service.
But tucked in the midst of this, a part of the creed we speak each and every time, but may not give much thought – is the mention of Christ descending into Hell. I suspect many of us have never heard a sermon on the descent into hell. Perhaps you aren’t even quite sure where this teaching comes from, or what it means.
Holy Scripture speaks very little about this event, but the clearest passage to reference it is our Epistle this morning from 1 Peter 3. Here Peter writes:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah...
Tucked between a discussion of Christian suffering and a wonderful lesson on Baptism and how it was foreshown by Noah’s flood... we have this little tidbit. And yet it was considered important enough that the ancient church ensconced it in the Apostles’ Creed, and later the Athanasian Creed (though, for some reason, not the Nicene)
Peter teaches that Jesus, made alive in the Spirit, “proclaimed to the spirits in prison” who disobeyed in the days of Noah. In other words, he descended into hell. But that doesn’t fully explain it.
We know that hell is the place of final condemnation and punishment. A final destiny that we, by our sins, deserve, were it not for the saving work of Christ. We know that hell is the devil’s domain, and his misery there loves company. But why does Christ then go there? What does this mean?
Perhaps we best approach this by first setting aside some false understandings:
For starters, Christ did not descend into hell to suffer. Peter himself makes the point in this very passage:
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh...
He suffered once, and that was on the cross. And as he then declared, “it is finished.” So there was no need to suffer hell a second time. He had already fully borne the weight of our sin, the wrath of God, and the forsaking of his Father – there, on the cross. And then he peacefully commended his spirit into the Father’s hands. So if not to suffer, why, then, descend into hell?
Some have suggested he went there on a rescue mission. As a sort of prison break, to free the Old Testament people who were condemned, because he hadn’t yet died for the sins of the world. And now that he had, well, he could finally free them. But this isn’t what Peter teaches. He says Jesus “proclaimed” to the spirits in prison, not that he freed them. And furthermore, Scripture teaches quite clearly that the Old Testament believers were saved by faith in Christ, looking forward, just as we are saved by faith in Christ, looking back.
Those are the two main errors, though there are far more varied and different explanations of this event that have been suggested over the years.
Perhaps our Lutheran Confessions can clear it up for us. For in the days following Luther’s death, many disputes broke out among the reformers. And these were largely settled by the Formula of Concord. One of those disputes was about the descent into hell, and here is how the Lutherans answered, and how we still teach it today:
we simply believe that the entire person, God and man, after the burial descended into hell, conquered the devil, destroyed the power of hell, and took from the devil all his might.
We should not, however, trouble ourselves with high and acute thoughts as to how this occurred; ... Thus we retain the substance [sound doctrine] and [true] consolation that neither hell nor the devil can take captive or injure us and all who believe in Christ.
To put it even more simply, Christ descended into hell, not to suffer, not to free those already condemned, but to proclaim his victory over the devil and all the forces of evil.
A victory lap – for us. To show the devil, and more importantly to show us, that the devil is defeated, his power is no more. Christ can stroll into and out of hell as easily as a Sunday walk in the park, and if hell has no hold over him, it has no hold over us who are in him.
You see, dear Christian, Christ’s work of salvation covers every aspect of our need – the physical, the spiritual, and the eternal. He pays the price for sin. He makes the atoning sacrifice. He destroys the power of death, and brings life and immortality to light. And he strips the devil of any power he had – by his resurrection and his proclamation.
The confessions warn us not to get too bogged down with wondering how this occurred, “we should not trouble ourselves with high and acute thoughts”. But I will suggest to you at least this much. Peter seems to indicate Jesus descended into hell after being made alive by the Spirit. So it makes sense that he went to proclaim his victory in his resurrected body. And perhaps even showed the same wounds to the devil that he showed to the apostles in the locked room. A cause for joy to us, but signs of the devil’s ultimate defeat.
And one more connecting-of-the-dots that has been put forward on this: When God spoke the curse in the garden of Eden, he spoke first to the Serpent, that the Messiah would crush his head, etc. Then he spoke to the woman, telling her of pain in childbirth and a desire for her husband who would rule over her. And finally he spoke to the man, Adam, cursing the ground because of his sin.
But now, in the descent into hell, Jesus undoes the curse. First he proclaims, preaches, announces his victory over Satan, that the serpent’s head is indeed crushed at the cross and in the resurrection. Then he appears, risen, to the women at the tomb. And finally, last of all, he appears to the men. And in his resurrection he undoes the curse and all its power. He gives new life to all who received life through our mothers. And he promises a rising from the dust of death to all who fell under Adam’s curse. Why did Christ descend into hell, then? You might also answer: to reverse the curse!
In any case it’s enough for us to know and confess that Christ descended into hell and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, as part of his work for us. Thanks be to God he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sin can no longer trouble us, with a conscience made clean in the waters of baptism. Death is done for, since Jesus has risen and we shall arise. And even the Devil, the old evil foe, is vanquished. Christ has secured the victory.
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