He Descended Into Hell
Or did he? I don’t even know how many times I’ve said the words “he descended into hell.” It comes after “He was crucified, dies and was buried” on Good Friday and before “He rose again” on Easter Sunday. Today, Saturday, Jesus would have been in hell according to the Apostle’s Creed. John Piper seems to disagree and thinks the phrase should be removed,
I would say, therefore, that there is no textual basis in the New Testament for claiming that between Good Friday and Easter Christ was preaching to souls imprisoned in hell or Hades. There is textual basis for saying that he would be with the repentant thief in Paradise “today” (Luke 23:43), and one does not get the impression that he means a defective place from which the thief must then be delivered by more preaching.
while John Calvin disagreed with the meaning, but offered up a different perspective on the phrase.
I tend to agree with Piper on most things, and this is probably one of them. Though we don’t say the Apostle’s Creed at my church, I’ll definitely think twice when reading or saying this phrase in the future. What do you think?
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
If the Son and the Father are one is it out of the realm of possibility that the “me” is the Father? A bit of a stretch, sure (especially considering Christ’s dialogue with the Father on Thursday and Friday).
If, as we claim, the sins of the world were placed upon Christ through his death on the cross then we have to say that at some point there was separation from the Father - we preach that in our churches today, Christ seemed to be talking as though he knew that was going to happen, and it fits with our theological understanding of the cross as atonement. Was there a physical descent in to a physical hell? Like Piper says, no NT text supports it (OT prophecy can be taken that way) but we have to believe that there is, at least for a time, separation from the Father - as close to hell as you can physically get.
I think that one must be EXTREMELY cautious when redefining or disagreeing with an ancient doctrine. I think Calvin’s defense is very solid.
I suppose I should have put more emphasis on and included an earlier quote from Piper as well. Earlier in the article he explains the viewpoint he disagrees with:
the traditional interpretation that Christ went to the place of the dead to preach the gospel to Old Testament saints that he might set them free for the full experience of heaven.
It does seem like a stretch to me to pull that from the passages in 1 Peter. I’m not even going to pretend I understand it all but I think Piper has a valid point.
Ah ha. Ya, that view I think is inserted from early Gnosticism. In various books of the pseudepigrapha such events are described.
Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_ffcomments() in /home/dustind1/public_html/wp-content/themes/WP_Premium/comments.php on line 45
Hell No.