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.
