This is the second part of an excursus from my series this year on the Athanasian Creed. I have been defending the Scriptural basis for each line in the Creed. This excursus is an explanation of the controversial line, He descended into hell, which begs further explanation. You can read the first post of this excursus here. In that, I mapped the ancient spiritual cosmography reflected in Scripture (three heavens; three chambers under the earth); clarified confusion around the word hell; and explained that Christ’s soul descended into the underworld at His death.

In this post, I will map the extent of Christ’s journey into the realm of the dead; what He did there; and why it matters to Christians.

Anchor Text: 1 Peter 3:18-22; 4:5-6

Christ also suffered once for sins in our place, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in flesh but was made alive in spirit, in which he also went and made an announcement to the spirits in prison. These spirits disobeyed long ago, when God’s patience was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In this ark a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the body but the guarantee of a good conscience before God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He went to heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him … They will have to give an account to the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead. In fact, it was for this reason that the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, so that they might be judged the way people are judged in flesh and that they might live the way God lives in spirit.

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This is a key—and controversial—text in the conversation about Christ’s descent.

What some want to do is connect 4:6–the gospel was preached also to those who are dead—with 3:19’s mention that Christ went and made an announcement to the spirits in prison. Thus the idea that Christ went into hell after His death, and gave at least some who had died a second chance to believe in Him and be saved.

But as we’ve seen, this doesn’t square with other biblical passages, especially Hebrews 9:27: it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment (Hebrews‬ ‭9‬:‭27‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). An opportunity to stave off judgment after one dies is nowhere hinted at elsewhere, and is flatly denied here.

So if that’s not what’s being taught in these verses, what is? And how do the rest of the Scriptures help us understand these verses? That’s what we’ll be taking up, beginning in this post.

Essentially, we need to answer the following questions:

1. Where did Christ’s spirit go after He died? In other words, where was His soul between His death and resurrection?
2. What did Christ do between death and resurrection?
3. What, if anything, did Christ accomplish between His death and resurrection?

In the last post in this series, I provided answers to those questions:

1. Christ’s soul descended into the realm of the dead, which Philippians 2:10 calls under the earth.
2. Christ proclaimed His victory over Satan, sin, and death. And this victory belongs also to His saints.
3. He liberated the souls of those who had died before from Sheol, and delivered them to the presence of God.

From here on out, I’ll be “showing my work,” as it were, from Scripture.

In the remainder of this post, I simply want to defend my assertion that Christ’s spirit went down into the abode of the dead—inclusive of Upper and Lower Sheol, and the Abyss / Tartarus. In a future post, I’ll unpack some important points about Christ’s journey into the depths of the spiritual realm—again, from Scripture.

Christ descended to the place of the dead

Where was Jesus’ soul between His death and resurrection. Well, we know where it wasn’t. It didn’t ascend into heaven. How do we know that?

Well, first, because He said so. When Mary Magdalene embraced Him on Easter morning, He told her: Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John‬ ‭20‬:‭17‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Now, some just here point to Christ’s final words in Luke 23:46: Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit’ (NKJV). They object that this passage shows that although Jesus had not ascended bodily into heaven, His spirit had been in heaven immediately upon dying—He never experienced Sheol.

There are several problems with this, of course.

First, Jesus was actually quoting Psalm 31:5. In the Psalm just before it, we read: O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit (Psalm‬ ‭30‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬). Likewise, Psalm 16:9b-11 reads: My flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16‬:‭9‬-‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). These passages clearly teach that Christ’s soul did descend into Sheol—but He was not left there. Instead, God graciously showed Him the path of life—i.e., raised Him from the dead; and eventually elevated Him to His right hand, which happened at His ascension (Acts 7:56; Romans 8:34; Hebrews 1:3; 12:2).

The witness of Christ’s own words, along with the Old Testament witness, show us a journey from the place of the dead; to bodily resurrection to earth; to the ascent into heaven. In short, there’s only one Ascension—not two.

Beyond this, the witness of the rest of the NT is that Christ descended into the place of the dead.

For example, in his Pentecost sermon, citing Psalm 16:10 (which we saw above), Peter spoke of Jesus as the One whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it … For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption (Acts‬ ‭2‬:‭24‬, ‭27‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). Christ went down into Hades—the abode of the dead—and God raised Him up from there.

Likewise, in Romans 10:6-7, applying Deuteronomy 30:12-13 to speak first of the Son’s descent to earth from heaven; then His descent into the place of the dead: But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, “ ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)’” (NKJV‬). Again, we see here Christ descended all the way down to the abyss, where the disobedient angels are imprisoned; and was among the dead.

Likewise, citing Psalm 68:18, in Ephesians 4:8-10, Paul said: Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things) (NKJV‬‬). So, Christ went in the spirit to the lower parts of the earth. Remember our chart from the last post? The “lower parts” are upper and lower Sheol / Hades; and the Abyss.

And Christ Himself confirmed this in Matthew 12:40: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭40‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). What is the heart of the earth but the lower parts of the earth in Ephesians 4:9?

So we see from the Apostles Peter and Paul, as well as Christ’s own testimony, that when He died, Christ descended into:

• Hades
• The Abyss
• “the dead” (that is, the place where the dead are)
• the lower parts of the earth
• the heart of the earth

This is the abode of the dead—the dwelling place of those Paul calls those under the earth in Philippians 2:10.

Jesus, as we saw in line 32 of the Creed, possesses a rational soul—that is, the same kind of human soul as all mankind. His soul did what all other humans did after death: He went into the realm of the dead.

So, in 1 Peter 3:18b-19 we read that Jesus was put to death in flesh but was made alive in spirit, in which he also went and made an announcement to the spirits in prison. This much we can ascertain from that: Christ’s spirit went after death to some sort of “prison” where He encountered and made an announcement to other spirits who were there.

This incidentally obliterates any doctrine of “soul sleep” after death. Not only do we see Abraham, Lazarus, and the rich man conversing in Hades in Christ’s famous parable; the rich man suffering torment, and Lazarus communing with Abraham (Luke 16:22-26); but Christ’s spirit was able to speak to other spirits in the realm of the dead in 1 Peter 3:19.

In the next post in this series, we’ll explore the significance of Christ’s journey through upper Sheol, lower Sheol, and into the Abyss; and see how this all interacts with 1 Peter 3:18-22; 4:5-6.