Christ's descent into hell

Christ’s descent into hell

I. Definition of hell

Before we look at the actual phrase and what is means in the Church, we need to first define some terms. 

The Bible uses three words generally translated as hell by the English language: hades, gehenna and tartarus. 

»The term hades corresponds to Sheol (Footnote 1 The King James Version, translated hades as hell. The KJV seems to be the first time in English that hell is used for both hades and sheol.). Hades originally referred to the underworld and the abode of wicked spirits awaiting final judgment. Later usage linked hades with death, the grave or hell. When the two words, death and hades, are used together, hades means the grave. 

»In the Old Testament sheol is used in two senses: 1. the state or condition of physical death into which all people eventually pass, believers and unbelievers alike; as such it may be translated „grave“; and 2. the abode of the damned which is „hell,“ the place of nether (down, under) torment. In each appearance of sheol its context and description determine the meaning which should be attached to the particular passage under consideration. 

»The Septuagint uses hades to translate sheol, and thus hades carries the same two meanings in the Septuagint as it does in the Old Testament. 

»In the New Testament hades appears ten times, again signifying either the condition of death (Acts 2,31) or hell itself (Luke 16,23), but in the latter case „hell“ is specifically conceived of as a receptacle for the disembodied spirits of the damned, that is, the place of torment where the damned are consigned during the interval between their physical death and the final resurrection. Depending upon the meaning intended, hades is then translated with the term „grave“ or „hell,“ respectively. 

»In addition to the above, it must be mentioned that the concept of „hell“ is also the intended meaning of another Greek term: gehenna. When hell is referred to as the abode of the damned in body and spirit after the final resurrection and judgment, then that place of torture is designated as gehenna in the Greek (Luke 12,5). 

»Of significance is the fact that gehenna comes from the Hebrew Ge-Hinnom which means „Valley of Hinnom.“ This valley lay south of Jerusalem and was the city garbage dump where fires were always burning. Jesus compared hell to this valley by referring in His teaching to the „gehenna of fire“ (Matthew 5,22; 18,9). 

»Finally, in 2. Peter 2,4 tartarus is also used for hell. The Greeks used this word to refer to a place deep within the earth, a place far deeper than even hades itself, where the wicked are forever punished« (GWTN 540-1). 

Hades
Matthew 11,23; 12,40; 16,18
Luke 10,15; 16,23
Acts 2,27.31
1. Corinthians 15,55
Revelation 1,18; 6,8; 20,13 

Hades not mentioned, but the place is referred to
Romans 10,6-8
Ephesians 4,7-10
1. Peter 3,19-20
1. Peter 4,6

Gehenna
Matthew 5,22.29-30; 10,28; 18,9; 23,15.33
Mark 9,43.45.47
Luke 12,5
James 3,6 

Tartarus (fn. 2 Tartarus is only known in Hellenistic Jewish literature from the Greek text of 1. Enoch, dated to 400-200 BC. This states that God placed the Archangel Uriel „in charge of the world and of Tartarus“ (20,2). Tartarus is generally understood to be the place where 200 fallen Watchers (angels) are imprisoned. (Kelley Coblentz Bautch A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17–19: „no One Has Seen what I Have Seen“ p134.))

2. Peter 2,4 

II. Christ descended into hell

Christ’s descent into hell (Descensus Christi ad Infernos; the harrowing of hell) refers to His triumphant descent into hell when He destroyed the power of hell and stripped the devil of his might. Although, hell is not mentioned by name in 1. Peter 3,18-20, it is these verses that seem to form the doctrine in the Creed „He descended into hell“. The Apostle Peter writes: »For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so 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, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.«
From these verses a number of Easter traditions and sermons have developed from the Early Church. Irenaeus (ad 180), Cyril of Jerusalem (ad 350) and Gregory of Nyssa (c. ad 383) all wrote on the topic: 

„The Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, announcing there the gospel of His advent and of the forgiveness of sins conferred upon those who believe in Him“ (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 4, Chap. 27, Para. 2). 

„For since the Lord went away into the midst of the shadow of death where the souls of the dead were, and afterwards arose in the body, and after the resurrection was taken up, it is clear that the souls also of His disciples, on account of which the Lord underwent these things, will go away into the place allotted them by God“ (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 5, Chap. 31, Para. 2).

„[Christ] descended into the subterranean regions so that He might ransom from there the just David was there, and Samuel and all the Prophets; and John, the same who, through his messengers, said: ‘Are You the one who is to arrive, or shall we look for another?’ Would you not want Him to go down to free such men as these?“ (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 4,11) 

„God (the Son) did not impede death from separating His soul from His body according to the necessary order of nature, but has reunited them to one another in the resurrection, so that He Himself might be, in His person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in Himself the decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated parts“ (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 1). 

Holy Saturday Responsory:
Our Shepherd, the Source of the Water of Life, has died.
The sun was darkened when He passed away.
But now man’s captor is made captive.
— This is the day when our Savior broke through the gates of death.

He has destroyed the barricades of hell,
overthrown the sovereignty of the devil.
— This is the day when our Savior broke through the gates of death. 

Prayer
O Almighty, Ever-living God, whose Only-begotten Son descended to the realm of the dead, and rose from there to glory, grant that Your faithful people, who were buried with Him in Holy Baptism, may, by His resurrection, obtain eternal life.
(We make our prayer) through our Lord.
(Through Christ our Lord.)“