Apostle's Creed

ValleyGal

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I was reading the Apostle's creed. It says that Jesus descended to the dead and on the third day he rose again. Question. Jesus rose physically from the dead. We assume he rose on the third day because that's when the stone was rolled away. Why didn't he descend to the dead physically, but he rose physically on the third day?
 

Lamb

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Jesus truly died as we know and physical death means there is a separation of the soul from the body. That's why His body did not arise when He went immediately into hell after dying.
 

psalms 91

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Jesus truly died as we know and physical death means there is a separation of the soul from the body. That's why His body did not arise when He went immediately into hell after dying.
Yet He preached down there and led the righteous side of hell out
 

Lamb

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Yet He preached down there and led the righteous side of hell out

Yes but that isn't what the OP was asking so I didn't include that in my response.
 

Josiah

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I was reading the Apostle's creed. It says that Jesus descended to the dead and on the third day he rose again. Question. Jesus rose physically from the dead. We assume he rose on the third day because that's when the stone was rolled away. Why didn't he descend to the dead physically, but he rose physically on the third day?


Interesting question! Never thought of that (thanks).

I agree with Lamm's theory.


BTW, we aren't told WHY Jesus did this (but the Early Church considered it important enough to put into the Creed - I have no idea why). But MY theory is that He simply proclaimed His victory. IMO, believers never were in Hell so there were no "believers" to redeem there - this had nothing to do with salvation; only the lost ever are in hell and there's no "second chance."
 

psalms 91

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Interesting question! Never thought of that (thanks).

I agree with Lamm's theory.


BTW, we aren't told WHY Jesus did this (but the Early Church considered it important enough to put into the Creed - I have no idea why). But MY theory is that He simply proclaimed His victory. IMO, believers never were in Hell so there were no "believers" to redeem there - this had nothing to do with salvation; only the lost ever are in hell and there's no "second chance."
Do you remember paradise, where do you think that was located? Where is it now?
 

Albion

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IMO, the "hell" referred to in the creed is paradise/Abraham's Bosom. Christ's descent and preaching there makes the most sense if this is the meaning.
 

Josiah

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IMO, the "hell" referred to in the creed is paradise/Abraham's Bosom. Christ's descent and preaching there makes the most sense if this is the meaning.


Tell me more...
 

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The thinking is that this is the real meaning of Paradise--the temporary state or place in the afterlife, the abode of those who would already have been in heaven except that the Messiah had not come yet in their lifetimes. Moses, Aaron, Adam, etc. It is sometimes also called the Limbo of Our Fathers.

The souls there were not in torment, but neither were they in heaven. When Christ triumphed over sin by his sacrifice, he presumably announced his victory to the souls there and they were freed to go to heaven then.
 

atpollard

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For your Information, commentary by Dr. James Dodd on the Apostles Creed

He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead

SECTION 1.—HE DESCENDED INTO HELL


It is somewhat startling to find in the Creed this statement regarding our Lord, "He descended into hell." The clause, which was one of the latest admitted into the Creed, was derived from another creed known as that of Aquileia, compiled in the fourth century. It does not appear in the Nicene Creed, but it has a place in the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, where we read, "As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also it is to be believed that He went down into Hell." The Westminster Divines, who gave the Creed a place at the close of their Shorter Catechism, appended a note explanatory of the clause to this effect, "That is, continued in the state of the dead, and under the power of death, until the third day."

The word "hell" is used in various senses in the Old Testament. Sometimes it means the grave, sometimes the abode of departed spirits irrespective of character, sometimes the place in which the wicked are punished.

In the English New Testament, also, the word "hell" has not in every place the same meaning. It represents two different nouns in the original Greek—Gehenna and Hades. Gehenna was the name of a deep, narrow valley, bordered by precipitous rocks, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which had been desecrated by human sacrifices in the time of idolatrous kings, and afterwards became the depository of city refuse and of the offal of the temple sacrifices. The other noun, rendered by the same English word Hell, is Hades, which means "covered," "unseen" or "hidden." Hades is the abode of disembodied spirits until the resurrection. The Jews believed it to consist of two parts, one blissful, which they termed Paradise—the abode of the faithful; the other Gehenna, in which the wicked are retained for judgment. Lazarus and Dives were both in Hades, but separated from each other by an impassable gulf, the one in an abode of comfort, the other in a place of torment.[117]

As long as the spirit tabernacles in the body there are tokens of its presence in the visible life which is sustained through its union with the body. But when it departs from its dwelling-place in the flesh, death and corruption begin their work on the body. Death is complete only when the spirit has departed, and it is probable that this statement in the Creed was meant to express in the fullest terms that Christ's death was real. As man He had taken to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, and when His body was crucified and dead, His spirit passed, as other human spirits pass at death, into Hades. It is not without a meaning that we read, "When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he gave up the ghost."[118] Ghost is simply spirit, and in His case, as in that of every man, there was a true departure of the soul from the body at death. It was with His spirit that His last thought in life was occupied. He knew that though it was to depart from the battered, bruised tabernacle of His body, it was not to pass out of His Father's sight or His Father's care. "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,"[119] were His last words on the cross.

The descent into hell is not referred to in the Westminster Confession, but in the Larger Catechism this statement is found: "Christ's humiliation after His death consisted in His being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death, till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, 'He descended into hell'"[120] What the Westminster Divines meant was, that while Christ's body was laid in the grave His spirit passed from the visible to the invisible world, that, as He shared the common lot of men in the death and burial of His body, so He shared their common lot in passing as a spirit into the abode of spirits. The statement of this clause follows naturally what is said of the body of Jesus in that which precedes it. As His body was crucified, dead, and buried, so His spirit passed into the abode of spirits. "In all things it behoved him to be made like unto His brethren."[121]

Those who maintain that the spirit of Christ descended into hell in a sense peculiar to Himself, ground their opinion upon certain passages of Scripture. Psalm xvi. 10—"Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption"—is quoted in support of this opinion, but does not really justify it. It expresses the confidence of the speaker, that God will not deliver His soul to the power of Sheol (the Hebrew word equivalent to the Greek Hades), or suffer His body to see corruption, and in this sense the passage is quoted by Peter, as a proof from prophecy of the resurrection of Christ. Ephesians iv. 9 is also regarded as giving sanction to this view—"Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" By the "lower parts of the earth" some understand parts lower than the earth, but such a view rests on a strained interpretation of the passage. Paul's argument is that ascent to heaven must have been made by one who, before ascending, was below. Christ had come down from heaven to earth, and was below therefore, he argues, Christ is the subject of the prophecy he has quoted. He it was that hid ascended up on high, not the Father, who is everywhere.[122]

In Isaiah xliv. 23 we have corroboration of this view: "Sing, O ye heavens ... shout, ye lower parts of the earth." Here "lower parts" means simply the earth beneath; that is, beneath the heavens.

The most difficult and important passage bearing on the clause is 1 Peter iii. 18, 19. "Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit by which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison." In the Revised Version the rendering is not "by" but "in," "which" referring to the word "spirit,"—not the third Person of the Godhead, but the human spirit of Jesus—in which spirit, separated from the body yet instinct with immortal life, He went and "preached to the spirits in prison," or rather to the spirits in custody. The passage marks an antithesis between "flesh" and "spirit." In Christ's "flesh." He was put to death. His enemies killed His body, but His soul was as beyond their power. His body was dead, but in the abode of souls His "spirit" was alive and active.

So far there is here simply the statement that our Lord's disembodied spirit passed to Hades, but the Apostle adds that He "preached to the spirits in prison," and it is inferred by some that He preached repentance, but this is an assumption for which there is no Scripture warrant. We are not told what was the subject of Christ's preaching. He had finished His work on earth, had atoned for sin, had overcome death and conquered Satan. Even angels did not fully know the work of grace and salvation which Christ accomplished for man, and it is not likely that the spirits of departed antediluvians and patriarchs understood its greatness. The least in the Kingdom of Heaven knows more than the greatest of patriarchs or prophets knew. While in the flesh they had seen His day afar off, and, as disembodied spirits, they knew that Messiah by suffering and dying was to work out their redemption, but before the work was finished neither men nor angels understood the mystery of it, and what is more likely than that the completion of His redeeming work was first made known to them in the spirit by the Redeemer Himself? If we accept this view, the preaching to the spirits in prison was the intimation to those already blessed, who had while on earth repented and believed, that Messiah by dying had brought in everlasting salvation for His people.
 

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There is still a difficulty in Peter's words. Christ is said to have preached to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah. Peter says that in the writings of Paul there are some things hard to be understood, but what he himself writes regarding Christ's work in Hades is also difficult, and the passage has found a great variety of interpretations. It would seem to imply that Christ in the spirit carried a special message to the antediluvians who had been disobedient and had perished in the Flood. What that message was we are not told, and human conjecture may not supply what the Spirit of God has seen fit to conceal. While the passage is a difficult one, the inference is not warranted which some have drawn from it, that those who are disobedient to Christ and reject His Gospel may, though they die impenitent, nevertheless obtain salvation after death. The plain teaching of Scripture is that it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.[123] And whatever the statement of Peter may mean, it does not sanction belief in purgatory or in universal restoration. Romanists teach that the department of Hades to which the spirit of our Lord descended was that in which dwelt the souls of believers who died before the time of Christ, and that the object of His descent was the deliverance and introduction into heaven of the pious dead who had been imprisoned in the Limbus Patrum, as they term that portion of Hades which these occupied. This they say was the triumph of Christ to which Paul refers in Ephesians iv. 8, when, quoting the 68th Psalm, he tells us that He ascended up on high, leading captivity captive.

According to the Romanists, Hades consists of three divisions—heaven, hell, and purgatory. Heaven is the most blessed abode reserved for three classes of persons:—1st, Those Old Testament saints whose spirits were detained in custody until Christ arose, when they were led out by Him in triumph; 2nd, Those who in this life attain to perfection in holiness; and 3rd, Those believers in Christ, who, having died in a state of imperfection, have made satisfaction for their sins and receive cleansing through endurance of the fires of purgatory. Hell is the abode of endless torment, where heretics and all who die in mortal sin suffer eternally. Purgatory is supposed to complete the atonement of Christ. His work delivers from original sin and eternal punishment, but satisfaction for actual transgression is not complete until after the endurance of temporal punishments and the pains of purgatory. The Church of Rome claims the right to prescribe the nature and extent of such punishments, and having devised a complicated system of indulgences, penances, and masses, professes to hold the Keys of Heaven and to possess authority to regulate penalties and obtain pardon for the living and the dead. Such claims are unfounded and false. God alone can forgive sin, and He recognises only two classes—the righteous and the wicked—here and hereafter; and only two everlasting dwelling-places—heaven and hell. The Romanist doctrine has no authority in Scripture, but is of heathen origin, being derived from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans, and having been current throughout the Roman Empire. Its effect has been the aggrandisement and enrichment of the papal priesthood and the subjection of the people. It contradicts the Word of God, which declares that there is no condemnation to the believer in Christ Jesus; that he hath eternal life; that for him to depart is to be with Christ, to enjoy unalloyed, unending blessedness. Protestants, therefore, hold that "the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory."[124]

Between those who hold the doctrine of purgatory and believers in universal restoration, there is not a little in common. Universalists reject the Atonement, and say that God always punishes men for their sins. The wicked must expect to suffer in the next world, but the mercy of God will follow them, the punishment endured will in time effect deliverance, and the result will finally be the restoration of all to purity and happiness. They thus maintain with regard to all, what Romanists hold respecting those who pass to purgatory, and both are to be answered in the same way. We cannot make satisfaction, and we need not, for Jesus has borne "our sins in his own body on the tree."[125] By this "one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified"; so that "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries."[126]

This clause has place in the Creed as a protest against the heresy of Apollinaris, a Bishop of Laodicea, who taught that Christ did not assume a human soul when He became incarnate. He thus denied the perfect manhood of Christ, and in support of His doctrine appealed to the fact that the Scripture says,[127] "The Word (in Greek, Logos) was made flesh," "God was manifest in the flesh," while it is never said that He was made spirit. He sought to establish a connection between the Divine Logos and human flesh of such a kind that all the attributes of God passed into the human nature and all the human attributes into the Divine, while both together merged in one nature in Christ, who, being neither man nor God, but a mixture of God and man, held a middle place. His heresy found many supporters, though it was promptly met by Gregory Nazianzen, who showed that the term "flesh" is used in Scripture to denote the whole human nature, and that when Christ became incarnate He took upon Him the complete nature of humanity, untainted by sin. Only thus could He be qualified to become man's Saviour, for only a perfect man can be a full and complete Redeemer. Man's spirit, his most noble element, stands in need of redemption as well as his body, for all its faculties are corrupted by sin.

In affirming that Jesus descended into hell, this clause of the Creed declares that He possessed the complete nature of humanity; that His true body died, and that His reasonable soul departed to Hades.
 
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