Last week we began this two part series on the descent and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. However, it ought to be a three part series, in fact, for the descent, resurrection, and ascension are all part of the same theme: The exaltation of the Person of Christ. While the Cross is the victory over the powers of Satan and the power of sin, the resurrection and ascension are God’s vindication of his Son. But then why include his descent into that category? Surely his descent into Hades is more closely linked to his death upon the cross, as we saw last week, for it fulfils the same themes as the atonement. Yes, this is true. But we must remember that the entire Easter narrative is part of the same theme: the conquering of sin, death, and the devil. Last week we saw Jesus proclaiming his victory over sin by suffering the torments of hell upon the cross in judgment on our behalf, and over Satan by descending into hell and not being held by death. This week we will see how by his resurrection he proclaims his victory over death itself, the great enemy brought about by sin, and through this how he ushers in the new creation.
 
Jesus’ victory over the power of death
Although Martin Luther believed that the article upon which the church stands or falls is justification by faith, according to Paul it really is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. J.I. Packer writes, “Had Jesus not risen, but stayed dead, the bottom would drop out of Christianity…”[1] But what sort of resurrection are we talking about? Was it physical or spiritual? What did the early Christians believe? In a massive 750+ page scholarly defence of the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead, N.T. Wright opens by stating, “it has become accepted within much New Testament scholarship that the earliest Christians did not think of Jesus as having been bodily raised from the dead; Paul is regularly cited as the chief witness for what people routinely call a more ‘spiritual’ point of view. This is so misleading (scholars do not like to say that their colleagues are plain wrong, but ‘misleading’ is of course our code for the same thing) and yet so widely spread that it has taken quite a lot of digging to uproot the weed, and quite a lot of careful sowing to plant the seed of what, I hope, is the historically grounded alternative.”[2] I can only refer to the work itself for anyone interested in the subject, but here I will put forward a defence in light of what the Creed affirms, and then what Jesus’ resurrection means for us.

Jesus was raised bodily
When the Creed affirms, “On the third day he rose again,” it is not referring to some spiritual resurrection from the dead, for at the moment of death Jesus would have been in a spiritual resurrection! Rather, what the Creed most emphatically affirms, along with the apostolic teaching on the subject, is that Jesus rose physically from the dead. This was, after all, the testimonies of the early disciples, which was reflected in the writing of the gospels. Jesus appeared in bodily form to many people who knew him well (1 Corinthians 15:1-11); in his resurrected state he ate food (Luke 24:41-43), he had people touch him and feel his body (John 20:27-29; 1 John 1:1-3); Jesus taught and gave instructions (Luke 24:13-35; Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 1:6-8). On the basis of these appearance, Wright argues against three incorrect explanations for this phenomena:
 
Resuscitation, not resurrection.
One of the objections given to the historical resurrection account of Jesus, is the seeming ignorance of the ancient people to be able to medically determine whether or not someone was officially dead. For this reason, they argue, Jesus was probably not dead, and was resuscitated later. However, Wright points out that “Even if the Roman soldiers, seasoned professionals when it came to killing, had unaccountably allowed Jesus to be taken down from the cross alive, and even if, after a night of torture and flogging and a day of crucifixion, he had managed to survive and emerge from the tomb, there is now way he could have convinced anyone that he had come through death and out the other side. He would have had to be helped through, at best, a long, slow recuperation.” In this sense it would have been impossible for Jesus to be vibrantly present three days later, teaching, eating, and walking about.

Cognitive dissonance.
Some have speculated that the traumatic experience that the disciples went through after their hopes in Jesus' mission had been dashed by his death, lead to what professional sociologists call “cognitive dissonance.” In other words, they argue that the disciples so believed in Jesus and his mission that they lived in denial and continued to talk about him as if he were still alive. Wright points out that “Nobody was expecting anyone, least of all a Messiah, to rise from the dead. A crucified Messiah was a failed Messiah.” This comes through strongly in the gospel where, rather than speaking about Jesus as if he were still alive, the disciples had locked themselves away for fear that the same fate may befall them (John 20:19). These disciples were not living in denial. They literally thought that this was all over, as reflected by one of the statements by some disciples who said, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21).

Ancient superstitious beliefs
Another argument that Wright proves is unconvincing is the widely held idea that ancient people were naturally superstitious, and that there were many accounts of various dying and rising gods in the ancient world that Jesus' followers merely adopted as their own. However Wright argues, “But – even supposing Jesus’s very Jewish followers knew any traditions like those pagan ones – nobody in those religions ever supposed it actually happened to individual humans.” Jewish monotheism was so strict, that even Paul initially opposed the church’s teaching about Jesus with the belief that this was leading other Jewish people into idolatry (see Acts 22:3-5). It was not common for Judaism to hold such beliefs, and even Paul had to have a blinding experience encounter with Jesus before he believed this was true (Acts 9).[3]
 
Ok, so perhaps, if there was a resurrection, it wouldn’t have been falsified for the above reasons. But how can we know that, historically speaking, there ever was a resurrection? Gary Habermas gives ten historical facts which “are agreed to by virtually all scholars (even of differing schools of thought) as historical facts, of which we will only mention 6:

1. The “empirical experiences which the disciples claimed concerning their having witnessed appearances of the risen Jesus.” Eyewitness testimony is one of the most important evidences, especially in light of how many people claimed to have witnessed Jesus raised after the crucifixion. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:6 that there were more than five hundred people who had seen Jesus raised, “most of whom are still alive.” So they could have been asked themselves.
2. The fact that these ordinary disciples became the greatest apologists for this truth, even giving their lives as a result. How else can this be explained unless these men and women were convinced they had literally seen the risen Jesus?
3. The “inability of the Jewish leaders to disprove it in the very city in which Jesus died and was buried.” There is no evidence whatsoever that the Jewish leaders who had opposed this movement so vehemently in the beginning provided counter evidence against the disciple’s claim that Jesus rose from the dead.
4. “The resurrection was the center of the earliest Christian preaching.” The preaching began almost immediately after Jesus' death and resurrection, and continued within the period of other eyewitnesses long before the gospels were even recorded. It shows that it was an event that drove the preaching rather than borrowing from other religious backgrounds.
5. “The evidence for the empty tomb constitutes a fifth evidence for Jesus’ rising from the dead.” This is a remarkable feature which coincides with #3 above. If Jesus was dead and in a tomb, all the skeptics could have done was either present the body in the tomb, or do a thorough investigation as to the disappearance of the body. But this did not happen. Rather, many people reported seeing Jesus after he was raised.
6. Of course, to have such sceptical people early on who opposed what was known as “The Way” become ardent defenders of it, such as Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9), shows that there must have been something more than a mere philosophy or way of life that brought about this change. Also, the conversion of James, Jesus’ own brother, who became the pillar of the church is significant (Galatians 1:19; Acts 15). For there is no indication that he believed or followed Jesus prior to his resurrection. Rather, the evidence is to the opposite, that he initially opposed Jesus’ ministry (John 7:5; Mark 3:21).[4]

 
While these historical evidences may not convince all people as to the veracity of the New Testament claims, they nonetheless are agreed upon by scholars that an explanation must be given as to why this happened. It does not do justice to merely dismiss ancient folk as superstitious, for as Wright has convincingly argued in The Resurrection of the Son of God, ancient people were not as superstitious as we might think. People didn’t think that dead people rising are normal occurrences. Rather, we even have the episode in the gospel narratives of Thomas, who would not believe that Jesus had risen unless he could verify it himself (John 20:24-29). The only logical explanation that we have is that the early disciples really did believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, and had appeared to them in physical form for numerous days after his resurrection, and as we have seen above, this wasn’t because they were living in denial! But the question we have to ask next is, what does Jesus’ resurrection mean?
 
The meaning of Jesus’ resurrection
But the resurrection is not just something that happened in history alone. It is an event that is laden with meaning. Michael Bird brings out four significant things that we can know as a result of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

1. “The resurrection tells us who Jesus really is.” Bird explains, “The resurrection is the divine sign that Jesus was given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18), vindicated from false accusations (1 Tim 3:16), marked out as God’s Son (Rom 1:4), designated as the heir of all things (Heb 1:2), and installed as the Messiah and Lord (Acts 2:36). In other words, the “resurrection meant that Jesus was the climax of God’s plan. What God was going to do for Israel and for the world, he was going to do through Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, the Son of God – and he had already begun to do it!”
2. “The resurrection means that the new age has already begun.” This is a very significant aspect of the gospel proclamation, for in the resurrection of Jesus, what the Jews thought would happen at the end of the age had already begun in and through the resurrection of Jesus. On the cross, God’s end-time judgment on behalf of his people was brought into the present, and now with the resurrection, God’s life-giving plan for the world has begun. Bird comments, “The resurrection shows that history has edged closer to its appointed goal, the future has invaded the present, and the present age will not continue indefinitely. The resurrection is living proof that God invades and disrupts the present order of things by bringing life in the face of death, and justification in the midst of condemnation, and rays of hope into the caverns of fear. God’s new day arises in the rising of his Son.”
3. “The resurrection is the vehicle of our salvation.” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:17 that “if Chris has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins,” and furthermore, in Romans 4:25 Paul says that Jesus “was raised for our justification.” In other words, without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no defeat of death, and that means that the power of sin will still have a hold on us. However, because Jesus was crucified on the cross on behalf of sin, death and Hades could not hold Him, and he was raised to life again, meaning that we too will be raised to life with him.
4. Bird finally ends by saying that the “resurrection is an integral feature of discipleship.” In other words, “the resurrection imparts a new ethical paradigm and forces us to adopt a kingdom perspective.” No longer do we live for this world, but because Jesus has been raised to life he is living proof that there is another kingdom that is greater than the kingdom of mankind. And though we live in this world, His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). Therefore, our ethics must reflect the kingdom to which we now belong, which is the kingdom of Christ. Bird writes, “the reality of who we are in Christ and where Christ is seated must surely impact our perspective and praxis in the present” (See Ephesians 1:16-23 with 2:6). It also gives us great encouragement that what we do in the present for the kingdom will bear fruit. Bird puts it well, “Our labor in the Lord in this life plants seeds that will sprout forth in the future world, so that what work we do in this age will flower in the coming age of the new creation.” Our works don’t add to our salvation, it compliments it![5]

 
Conclusion
When the Creed affirms Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead, it is affirming no less than his physical resurrection, but also much more. Because Jesus has been raised from the dead, we can know with certainty that the victory has been won on our behalf. This is what we discussed in the past two weeks. However, it also gives us courage in the present to know that we now can live a new life in Christ, and that we live for a kingdom that will endure. We therefore are to pattern our lives according to this kingdom, and not fall trap to the lie that the present world is all there is. As Christians, we live out the resurrection by our conduct, allowing the resurrection of Jesus to determine our ethics, our moral standard, and, though we build in this present world, we ultimately are to build the kingdom of Christ!


[1] Packer, J.I. 1994. Growing in Christ. Wheaton: Crossway Books, pg. 59.
[2] Wright, N.T. 2003. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, pg. xvii.
[3] See Wright, N.T. 2006. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, pg. 111-114.
[4] Habermas, G. 1980. The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, pg. 33-38.
[5] Bird, M.F. 2016. What Christians Ought to Believe. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, pg. 155-158.

Last week we looked at the necessity of the suffering of Jesus as the Messiah, and that this meant both victory over the powers of darkness and redemption from the power of sin for God’s people. This is the meaning of the death of Jesus upon the cross. But what happened after the cross? I mean, the whole reason we have Christianity and Easter is not because Jesus died an atoning sacrifice for sinners alone, but because something remarkable happened after the death of Jesus on the cross.
 
The Apostle’s Creed next affirms that Jesus “descended into hell,[1] and on the third day he rose again.” But what in the world does it mean that Jesus “descended into hell”? And how did he rise from the dead? This week[2] we will deal with the first of these two controversial statements, “he descended into hell”, and next week we will see how the Christian faith hinges upon the resurrection. In other words, without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, there is no Christianity (1 Corinthians 15:14). But, first, we must deal with this cryptic statement found in the creed, “he descended into hell.”
 
Jesus’ victory over the power of hell
There are two interpretations on this article which are prominent, and they emphasise either Christ’s victory over sin, or his victory over Satan and his emissaries, both of which are inferred from Jesus’ suffering upon the cross.  We looked at this last week in more detail. We will deal with the former first, and then the latter.
 
Interpretation 1: Christ’s Victory over Sin
The Heidelberg Catechism (henceforth HC) asks the question, “Why is there added, ‘he descended into hell’?”[3] The reason why it states “Why is there added,” is because this article in the Apostle’s Creed was only added much later, perhaps in the fourth century,[4] and so is not confessed by all churches who hold to the Apostle’s Creed.[5] Therefore we understand that this article’s pedigree is to be held with suspicion. Nevertheless, the HC proposes an answer, “That in my greatest temptations, I may be assured, and wholly comfort myself in this, that my Lord Jesus Christ, by his inexpressible anguish, pains, terrors, and hellish agonies, in which he was plunged during all his sufferings, but especially on the cross, has delivered me from the anguish and torments of hell.” In other words, the HC follows Calvin’s interpretation, which states, “If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. No – it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and to satisfy his just judgment. For this reason, he must also grapple hand to hand with the armies of hell and the dread of everlasting death.” It would seem that Calvin, though not entirely in full agreement with Aquinus, for he still maintains that the entire event happens on the cross, but still follows Thomas Aquinus on this point to some extent who writes, “I answer that It was fitting for Christ to descend into hell. First of all, because He came to bear our penalty in order to free us from penalty, according to Is. 53:4: ‘Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows.’ But through sin man had incurred not only the death of the body, but also descent into hell. Consequently since it was fitting for Christ to die in order to deliver us from death, so it was fitting for Him to descend into hell in order to deliver us also from going down into hell.”[6]
 
So while the HC and Calvin keeps the torment that Jesus suffered as metaphorical of the experience of hell on our behalf, Aquinus seems to go further and suggest, along with the plain reading of the Creed, that Jesus actually descended into hell. Yet, the entire reason for this still remains to suffer the torments of hell on behalf of those who deserve hell itself. In this sense, Jesus conquered sin fully and made full satisfaction for our sins.
 
Interpretation 2: Christ’s Victory Proclamation
Michael Bird has shown in his exposition that there is confusion because of “the failure to distinguish between Hades and hell in various versions of the Creed.”[7] Since the 17th Century, hell  in the English had come to be a place of judgment and torment to which Satan and his enemies were assigned, but prior to the 17th Century referred to the place of the dead, or, Hades.[8] Bird also shows how this confusion crept into the Latin versions of the Creed with the use of inferus which refers to the place of the dead, or Hades, and infernus which meant the place of torment and judgment.[9] He shows how in some of the earlier versions of the Creed in Latin had descendit ad inferus, but in the fourth century it was changed to infernus. Bird therefore argues that a better translation of the creed, and a more biblical understanding, would be to render this article as “descended to the place of the dead.”[10] Bird shows how the Greek word for Hades is used in the New Testament for the place of the dead, translating the Old Testament concept of Sheol, and that in the New Testament Gehenna came to refer more properly to hell as a place of torment and judgment for the wicked. But for Bird, hell is a place of eschatological judgment that happens at the end of time after the judgment seat of Christ, and so is not a place which has yet been created.[11] In other words, Bird sees the reference to Hades as a place of the dead, like Sheol, which is “the waiting place of the dead… as they wait for the final judgment, while hell is the place of everlasting punishment and eternal separation from God.”[12] Hades, in this sense, is still a place of consciousness, and has a place for the wicked waiting judgment and the righteous experiencing present joys.

Bird suggests three reasons for Jesus’ descent into Hades:

1. “First, Jesus preached the good news of his victory to the wicked in Hades.” He rests on texts such as 1 Peter 3:19-20 which does describe Jesus’ descent to proclaim “to the spirits in prison, because they did not formerly obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared...” This, says Bird, was “how Jesus went to the place of the dead and declared his victory over the disobedient angels imprisoned there and reminded the wicked of the judgment to come.”
2. “Second, Jesus set the saints of old free from Hades and took them up into heaven.” Bird draws his evidence from Paul’s interpretation of Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8-10, where Paul writes, “This is why it says, ‘When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.’ (What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions…” Bird argues that “The chief idea is that when Jesus rose and ascended to heaven, he took with him departed saints, bringing them out of the bondage of death, and ever since then believers who die go directly to heaven to be with Christ and to join the church triumphant.”
3. “Third, Jesus achieved a victory over death and Hades itself.” He quotes Revelation 1:17-18 in support, where Jesus says of himself, “I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” To this, Bird writes, “Because Jesus descended and rose, the doors of death and the gates of Hades cannot prevail over the church. Because Jesus descended and rose, death could not hold him and Hades could not keep him. Because Jesus descended and rose, he owns the keys to death and Hades.”[13]

 
In light of both interpretations considered, I cannot see how this is an either/or. When we confess Jesus' suffering on our behalf, we do confess that he suffered the torments and punishment for sin to the degree that he, the sinless and perfect Son of God, felt the effects of hell on our behalf. But Bird also makes a biblical case that there was more to Jesus’ death than merely this. It was a declaration of victory over the powers of Satan and his emissaries, and indeed a triumph on behalf of us, his people. Both are compatible with our previous study on the atonement: it was both for our sin and victory over Satan on our behalf!
 
Conclusion
The descent of Jesus into hell is a rather obscure doctrine in the Christian church, upon which many faithful believers are divided. At this point it is important to point out that there is no salvific merit in this article, and therefore there must be much grace shown with different parties who disagree on this matter.

​There is one position, however, that claims that Jesus descended into hell to seemingly pay a ransom to Satan, and then through a slight of hand defeats the unexpected foe. This position must be rejected as heretical. There is no evidence of Jesus ever having to make payment to Satan for our sins, or that God used deception to outwit Satan! Jesus conquers Satan, he doesn’t pay it. Michael Horton clarifies, “The curse of sin and death was a sentence imposed by God for the violation of his law; Satan’s role in the drama is that of seducer and prosecutor rather than judge or claimant in dispute. The truth in this conception is that God outwitted Satan and the rulers of this age by triumphing over them precisely where they celebrated God’s defeat.”[14] This is what was captured eloquently by Lewis in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which we quoted last week in conclusion to our study. Just because Satan doesn’t understand God’s designs, doesn’t mean that it was deceived.

The article of Jesus’ descent into hell is both the extent to which Jesus carried our penalty (Calvin’s view) and the victory over Satan on our behalf (Bird). Both are true in light of what the Creed affirms in this article, and rich in meaning for the believer. Through this those who trust in the atoning sacrifice of Christ can be sure that he bore our full punishment in himself, and through this conquered the powers of darkness on our behalf. This is a comforting article in the Creed, and ought to cause us to glory in our Redeemer.

Next week we will look at the second part to this article, and that is concerning Jesus' resurrection from the dead, which I titled "Jesus' victory over death." 


[1] I have kept the traditional wording “hell” rather than the new versions “into the place of the dead” for the sake of interest. We must now explain what is meant by “hell”.
[2] I initially started writing this as an entirety, but realised that it needed two sessions to cover it all in depth.
[3] Heidelberg Catechism, Q44.
[4] See Packer, J.I. 1994. Growing in Christ. Wheaton: Crossway Books, pg. 56.
[5] See Calvin, J. Institutes of the Christian Religion. II:XVI:8: “Now it appears from ancient writers that this phrase which we read in the Creed was once not so much used in the churches… From this we may conjecture that it was inserted after a time, and did not become customary in the churches at once, but gradually.” (in Battles, F.L. transl. & McNeil, J.T. ed. 1960. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, pg. 512.
[6] Aquinus, T. Summa Theologica. III: LII: 1.
[7] Bird, M.F. 2016. What Christians Ought to Believe. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, pg. 148.
[8] Packer, J.I. 1994. Growing in Christ. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 56.
[9] Bird, pg. 148.
[10] Ibid, pg. 145.
[11] He refers to Revelation 20:14 which states explicitly that “Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.”
[12] Ibid, pg. 144.
[13] Ibid, pg. 145-146.
[14] Horton, M. 2011. The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, pg. 501-502.