Ask the Pastor
What does it mean when we say that Jesus descended into hell in the creed?
Yes, the Apostles’ Creed confesses that “Jesus descended into hell.” It is not alone in that confession for the Athanasian Creed makes a similar confession. The Athanasian Creed, which is named after St. Athanasius, is the third symbol of the Lutheran Confessions. At Peace, we use it on Trinity Sunday. In it are the lines, “He suffered death for our salvation. He descended into hell and rose again from the dead.”
Through history this event has been called the descendit, or “harrowing of hell.” Liturgically, the descent is the focus of our Holy Saturday service. Many famous works of art have been made of it.
As always, the creeds are summarizing what we read in scripture and bringing to focus important aspects about the God in whom we believe. Peter mentions Christ’s descent in 1 Peter 3:18-20: “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.” Likewise, he mentions it again in the next chapter, 1 Peter 4:6: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.”
Paul also mentions it in Ephesians 4:9: “In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?” Likewise, Colossians 2:15 refers to the same event, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
Hosea 13:14 asks the question of who should ransom the captives from hell. Psalm 68:18 answers, “You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.” In 1533, Dr. Martin Luther preached a sermon on Christ’s descent to hell. In it, he looks to Psalm 16:10 as a prophesy of his descent, “you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.”
On Christ’s descent, our confessions conclude: “For it is enough that we know that Christ descended into hell and destroyed hell for all believers and that he redeemed them from the power of death, the devil, and the eternal damnation of hellish retribution. How that happened we should save for the next world, where not only this matter but many others, which here we have simply believed and cannot comprehend with our blind reason, will be revealed.” FC, Ep IX:4, in BC, p. 514.
Christ’s descent to the dead is good news for you and me, for Jesus went to hell to plunder you and me from bondage to the Devil. And now, we are free in Christ.