Theology Matters Conference 24, Day 1 - The Descent of Christ to Hades: Part 1

This neglected aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry was the subject of the first day of the Theology Matters Conference 2024 with Patrick Schreiner. Patrick is Associate Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was with us from 4th-6th June to talk about “The Neglected Christ: The Descent, Ascension, and Transfiguration of Jesus.”

This is the first of three short articles summarising the conference, split into the three topics covered. As hard as I tried to keep this concise, there was just so much good teaching, so it has been split into two parts. 1) What is the Descent, and 2) Why does it matter to us?

What was Jesus doing in the three days between his death and resurrection?

That might be a question you’ve asked yourself before and thought, hmm, sounds like too much hard work, and it doesn’t really matter because he was resurrected!

Does it matter? If we removed the descent from our concern or study, would we miss out?

You’re not alone; these sorts of things have gone through my mind too.

But since it is part of the Bible, and part of Jesus’ life-death-resurrection, perhaps we should give it a little thought.

There could be a few options:

• He was just dead, as in, not really anywhere, and the verses about the descent are metaphorically talking about how Jesus bore the weight of our sin, and so endured a kind of ‘hell’.

• It could be an analogy. Descending to the realm of the dead could be similar to saying “sleeping with the fishes” or “six feet under,” meaning it’s just a figure of speech.

• Or, Jesus could have gone somewhere. Some verses speak of Jesus going to another place in this time and doing things. But where? And what?

It’s worth saying at this point that this is a debated topic, and no matter what your thoughts are on the Descent, you won’t fall out of proper Christian truths. But, if we mine the Scripture for insight into this, I think there is gold to be found, and this was Patrick’s argument.

Before we start thinking about what Jesus was doing, or even where he was between his death and resurrection, we need to do a little bit of work to establish what exactly we’re talking about here. Patrick referred to this as “world-building” because we’re building categories of what our world is like according to how the biblical authors understood it. This is ‘thinking biblically’.

When you think of what God created, you might jump to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But, as is most often the case, we cannot build our understanding of the truth on one verse in isolation. What about Philippians 2:10, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,” or Revelation 5:3, “And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it?” Now we have a third category: under the earth.

And what does that mean exactly?

Under the earth probably isn’t a literal place. I don’t think the biblical authors would have had any concept of the layers of crust and core in the earth, so most likely, “under the earth” also refers to a spiritual place, not a physical one.

This place is very often across Scripture referred to by the name “Sheol” or “Hades,”[1] and is a place that we will all go to when we die. The most you might know about Hades is the guy with the blue flame hair in Hercules. But Hades, though featured in Greek mythology as one of the gods, is actually a place we will go when we die. I don’t mean to say that we will have any opportunity for further salvation like the Roman Catholic Purgatory idea, but I do mean our souls will be in Sheol/Hades until the second coming of Christ, when we will be raised and given new bodies. We will have an intermediate state.

However, it seems there are also different parts of Sheol, and we may even be segregated as righteous and unrighteous. If you think of the puzzling parable that Jesus told about Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16:19–31, from his anguish, the Rich Man can see Lazarus at “Abraham’s side” (v22), and there is a great chasm (trench or canyon) between them so that one cannot pass from one part to another. Since we have righteous and unrighteous in the same-ish place but also separate, Sheol appears to have multiple parts or domains.

So in Jesus’ descent, though his body remained in the tomb, his soul went to Sheol, which, somewhat confusingly, is not the place often referred to as Hell.

Hell, or “lowest Sheol” is the final destination for unrighteous sinners and the fallen angels after Christ’s second coming, just as the final destination for the righteous is the New Creation.[2]

Here’s a diagram that might help you if you’re more visual:

So what?

Come back for Part 2.

[1] For references to Sheol see: Gen 37.35; Num 16:30–33 (confusing one!); Deut 32:22; 1 Sam 2:6; 2 Sam 22:6 (Stranger Things might have some truth!); Job 7:9; 11:8; 26:6; Pss 6:5; 9:17; 16:10 (Messianic); 30:3; 86:13; 139:8; Prov 5:5; 9:18; 23:14; Eccles 9:10; Isa 5:14; 7:11; 14:15; 38:10; Ezek 31:15–16; Hos 13:14; Jonah 2:2. For references to Hades see: Matt 11:23; Luke 10:15; Acts 2:27, 31 (quoting Ps 16:10, meaning Sheol (Hebrew) = Hades (Greek)); Rev 1:8; 6:8; 20:13–14. Other words that could be used synonymously are: Pit (Ps 88:3–4; Ezek 28:8), Deep (Ps 69:14–15; Jonah 2:5–6), Abyss (Luke 8:31; Rom 10:7)

[2] Lowest Sheol is a separate domain within Sheol that the fallen angels of Genesis 6 are imprisoned in (Gen 6:4, see also 2 Peter 2:4, where “Hell” is the Greek word Tartarus, which is not Hades)