Question: what does it mean,
he descended to hell
Was this literally hell? Or what does it mean?
Hell = the grave.
I have posted about the nature of "hell" multiple times here and other forums because it is important. The first important fact to understand is that (most of) the NT was written in Greek and largely to a population that understood Greek and was culturally Greek or Hellenistic. Simply put, the NT writers used the language prevalent in their day. That alone is all that is necessary for understanding their use of the words "
hell," "
hades" and "
tartarus." Had they been writing strictly as Jews to an audience that was strictly and solely Jewish they'd have written in Hebrew or Aramaic and used the words "
sheol" and "
gehenna." It would do me no good to constantly use the words "ifreaan" or "mictean" to an English speaking audience. I could post 100 posts about ifreann or mictian and accomplish nothing because everyone is going to ask me, "
What in the world are you talking about? What is 'ifreann'? What is 'mictian'?" I might as well be speaking gibberish.
gleerflunkin zubernkta marqthexinch nabe dooilkip!
The next important point to understand is that
JESUS DID NOT SUBSCRIBE TO THE PAGAN MYTHOLOGIES!!! Jesus likely spoke in Aramaic and he spoke from Tanakh. He did not teach Judaism. That may be a point in dispute my many reading this but Tanakh (the Old Testament) is not the same thing as Judaism. Tanakh is always and everywhere correct. Judaism is often incorrect. I can take that up in another thread for those interested but for now the point is Jesus taught the truth, the word of God, not the Jewish religious additions and changes to Tanakh. Tanakh spoke of sheol, or the grave. For mainline Jews that meant the cessation of life. There was no life after death and definitely not any resurrection. That was the belief of the Pharisees, the minority sect in Judaism. The pagans taught a world of lesser gods, one of which ruled an underworld where people went for all eternity when they died.
There are no lesser gods.
There is only God, the God of ALL things, the Maker of all that is, visible and invisible, the One true God and
there are no others. There is, therefore, no such thing as Pluto. The "god" Pluto is a
myth. The gods "
Hades," "Vulcan," "Hel," "Osiris," "Arawn," "Ah Puch," "Mictlantecuhtli," and
ALL the rest are myths. They do not actually exist. The grave exists. So does death, and it is appointed for every single human ever created to die once and then face judgment (Heb. 9:27).
God, the Creator is LORD of all. He and He alone is LORD of all, even LORD of and over death.
That is what Jesus taught. When a person dies s/he does not go to the realm of some lesser god to continue living in misery under the rule of a mythological god of the dead. When a person dies they stand before their Creator and either the just recompense for their sinful life is meted out OR they are saved from that life and the end it brings by
grace. There is no option to
earn a place in the Elysian Fields outside of Olympus. That is a myth.
There are other germane points but for now the point is that "hell" simply means the grave and the core precept to Christianity is that Jesus came, lived, dies, was buried, and rose again
from the grave. The entire foundation of Christianity is the belief Jesus rose from the grave. If that is not true then we Christians are fools and the most pitiful people who have ever lived. As Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:19,
If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
If Jesus is not resurrected, we're schmucks. The gospel is an stumbling block to the Jew (who believes either there is no life after death or it is life under the Messiah's rule and the criminal they cursedly crucified is not the Messiah) and foolishness to the Gentile (who believes death is a miserable existence under the rule of a lesser god).
Now, doctrinally, a variety of things have been added to the word, "hell," and,
doctrinally speaking, Christians have held a variety of beliefs about hell ranging from perpetual suffering to annihilation with ideas like purgatory somewhere in between. The Apostles' Creed is a doctrinal Creed and at the time of its inception (c. 340 AD) the prevailing religious/doctrinal view was Roman Catholic. The Apostles' Creed is not a Protestant creation. I would be inclined to say the earliest understanding of the Apostles' Creed's "hell" was purgatory but that would not be true because the doctrine of purgatory is a 12th century invention. The earliest speakers of the Apostles' Creed would NOT have understood, "descended into hell" to mean he went to purgatory to work off sins but did not have to stay because he had no sin to work off
. That's just nuts. From the earliest days of Christianity, it was understood Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, entered the grave and rose from the dead. All the many connotations of hell were added later.
One last note. When the creed speaks of the "
catholic" church it is a small "c" catholic, not a capital "C" Catholic. The word "
catholic" simply means all-encompassing or universal. It does not mean Roman.
