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, 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."
Yesterday, a member of our Day of Praise family asked the following. And I thought that some others might be wondering too. They asked,
Pastor Chris, I wanted to ask for your input about something in the Apostles' Creed. Some versions say, "he descended into hell" (the old green hymnal, LBW). Others say "he descended to the dead" (the new red hymnal, ELW).
I had a conversation with someone in our church and they said it is correct to say Jesus descended to the dead, meaning He went to a purgatory type place to be with the "people who were waiting for Him." I've always believed when you died you went to heaven, not a waiting place. I guess I've always taken this literally when we would say Jesus descended into hell, and He actually went to hell to experience it like all the others who were there. Maybe you can explain this to me a little better.
I responded by saying -- There are a number of connected matters. But I'd say the most simple and important one to point to is Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." In this verse, we see why Jesus died for us. He died for our sin. He died to take on the penalty of our sin, which belonged to us. In dying for us, he descended to the dead, which is to say to the place of the dead, which is, because of sin, in essence, hell. So both forms of the creed are correct, rooting one in the explicit and literal language of scripture (dead, Romans 6:23) and rooting the other in the meaning of death, which is conflict and rebellion and strife with God, otherwise known as hell.
A parallel example is in the Lord's prayer where what we ask forgiveness for is variously translated sins, trespasses, or debts. Just as with the creed where dead and hell are describing different aspects of the same reality, namely, the consequence of sin, so too do sins, trespasses, and debts describe different aspects of the same reality, namely, the rebellious posture of the heart (sins), the actual offense (trespassing on God's turf by wanting to be God), and the consequence of the rebellious offense (debts that are immeasurable and therefore unpayable).
The bottom line is that Jesus takes on himself the death and its consequences that we brought about by turning from God. He paid for and conquered our death, our hell, our sins, our trespasses, and our debts so that we would be set free to live anew in God with one another. Our new life of trust in and obedience to God is a small way to live thankfully to God and inviting others to the same.
Praise God!
(For an archive of "Day of Praise", please visit my daughter Calley's website at http://dayofpraisepc.blogspot.com/?m=1)
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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