Did
Jesus need to go to hell to finish the work of saving us from sin? Would God
allow Jesus to suffer in hell? Some well-known Christian ministers teach that,
after Jesus Christ died on the cross, he went to hell to finish paying the
penalty for our sins prior to the resurrection. Is that true? If He was not in
hell, where was Jesus during those three days?
Where did that teaching originate?
Possibly
the earliest reference to Jesus’ descent into hell is found in the Apostles’
Creed, which states Christ:
“was crucified, dead, and buried: He
descended into hell: The third day He rose again”.[i]
The
Apostles’ Creed was almost certainly not penned by the Apostles, but was
probably written only a few centuries after their time and is still used in
many denominational churches today. The creed is doctrinally very sound, with
the reference to hell as the only questionable point. However, the meaning of
“hell” in the creed is important, as we will see below.
Two
New Testament verses seem to indicate that Jesus went to hell following His
death on the cross. They read in the King James Version:
“Because
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to
see corruption.” (Acts 2:27) This is a quotation of Psalm 16:10.
“He seeing
this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in
hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.” (Acts 2:31)
Translating “hell”
The
Greek word translated as “hell” in the second chapter of Acts is hades, defined as the region of the
departed spirits of the lost; the abode into which the spirits of men are
ushered immediately after death. Hades
and its corresponding Hebrew word sheol,
used in the Old Testament, do not denote the permanent, eternal region of the
lost. In the New
Testament, two Greek words are translated into English as “hell”: hades and gehenna (or geenna). Hades (Strong’s 86), used ten times in
the NASB version, is used to refer to “the grave, the place of the dead, ‘the
underworld’”.[ii] Hades
is properly understood as “the region of the departed spirits of the lost … it
expresses the general concept of the invisible world or abode into which the
spirits of men are ushered immediately after death … [Hades is] the intermediate state between death and the ultimate
hell, Gehenna”.[iii]
What is Gehenna?
This
is what we normally think of as hell, with fire and torment. The word geenna (Strong’s 1067), is rendered as “Gehenna, hell, ‘Valley of Hinnom’”.[iv] This valley was used at one time to
offer child sacrifices to Molech.[v] The Valley of Hinnom was located just
outside of the southern part of Jerusalem and was used as a burning pit for
trash from the city. The word Gehenna is
used in the Bible twelve times, eleven by Jesus and once in James 3:6. The
allusion by Jesus of Gehenna as a
continuously burning trash dump for condemned souls would have been very
poignant for the Jews living near Jerusalem. He used described Gehenna as “fiery” (Matthew 5:22 and
18:9). The Bible indicates hades (holding
place for departed souls) will cease to exist following the white throne
judgment:
“Then death and Hades were thrown into
the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” (Revelation
20:14)
This
makes sense if all persons will be, from that time forward, either in heaven or
hell (Gehenna). Hell is the place
where the unsaved will be cast in the future, after the judgment (Revelation
20:15). Jesus would not have gone to this place during his three days in the
grave.
With
the differences in the original Greek better understood now, a more accurate
translation of the Greek words render these verses in Acts as such:
·
“because
you will not abandon my soul to hades
nor allow your holy one to undergo decay” (Acts 2:27) The verse in Psalm 16:10
likewise more accurately reads in the Hebrew:
“For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol”
, not hell.
·
“he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the
Christ, that he was neither abandoned to hades,
nor did his flesh suffer decay.” (Acts 2:31)
Statements of Jesus
Other
verses concerning Jesus Christ clearly indicate that he would not be in hell (Gehenna) following his crucifixion and
death. In Luke 23:46, it is written, “and Jesus, crying out with a
loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ Having said
this, He breathed His last.” If Jesus
was going to suffer in hell, would He have made this statement? Additionally, if Jesus would suffer in the
fire of hell for three days, would he have said to the one thief on the cross,
“Today you will be with me in paradise”?
(Luke 23:43) The Greek word translated here as “paradise” is paradeisos
(Strong’s 3857), meaning either the part of hades
reserved for the righteous held prior to the resurrection or some region of
heaven. Paradise may be equated with heaven by Paul, who uses the same word as
Luke (paradeisos) in 2 Corinthians
12:4. Two verses previous, he uses the phrase “third heaven” (ouranos – Strong’s 3772). The point is
that Jesus did not say he would be in gehenna
to endure more suffering later that day; rather He would be in paradeisos.
It is finished
If it was necessary for Jesus to suffer torment in hell, he would
not have been able to make the statement on the cross, “It is finished.” in John
19:30. The Greek word tetelestai means something is
accomplished or fulfilled. The word tetelestai was also
written on business documents or receipts in New Testament times indicating
that a bill had been paid in full. Notice Jesus did
not say on the cross, “It is almost finished”, nor did He wait until three days
had passed to say, “It is finished”. He was the perfect, sinless lamb of God (John
1:29) and when He died, it was completed. Peter stated Jesus bore our sins on
the cross (1 Peter 2:24), not in hell.
To
more properly understand this issue, we should differentiate the purpose of the
cross from the purpose of hell (gehenna).
Hell is a future (2 Peter 3:7), eternal place of punishment, banishment from
God’s presence (2 Thessalonians 1:9) and a quarantine for the unregenerate apart
from those who are saved. The cross, on the other hand, was the final and
ultimate sacrifice, of which the Old Testament animal sacrifices were a
foreshadowing. Think about it – the sheep did not go to hell to suffer. That
was not the point of the sacrifice. The cross and hell have very different
purposes.
Where was He for three days?
If
Jesus was not in hell, what was He doing between death on the cross and the
resurrection? Geisler and Rhodes point out the two views concerning this issue.
1. The Hades View. According to this position, Jesus’
spirit went to the holding place of those who had died and “He went and made
proclamation to the spirits now in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). The Apostle Paul
references this as well: “’When He
ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men’.
Now this expression, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean except that He also had
descended into the lower parts of the earth?” (Ephesians 4:8-9)
Peter states that, following His death, Jesus “went and made
proclamation to the spirits now in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). The original Greek word rendered prison is phylake, which means the act of keeping
watch or guarding or a place where someone is watched or guarded. The spirits
mentioned here are described as those who were disobedient during the time Noah
was preaching righteousness (1 Peter 3:20). This also likely includes other
unsaved persons who died prior to the time of Christ.
2. The Heaven View. Proponents of this position teach
that the souls of Old Testament saints ascended directly to heaven. Enoch was
taken by God (Genesis 5:24 and Hebrews 11:5). The Bible states Elijah “went up
by a whirlwind to heaven” (2 Kings 2:11). Prior to the resurrection of Jesus,
the souls of the righteous went to heaven, while their bodies awaited the
resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20 and Matthew 27:53).[vi]
So, what?
Why
is this important? This issue probably does not involve an essential Christian
doctrine. However, it relates to two significant issues:
1. We should be very cautious when
extrapolating beliefs concerning Jesus Christ or God. This is particularly
evident in statements of some people who go on to say that Jesus not only
suffered in hell, but also was born again. As Geisler and Rhodes state, “the
Bible is clear that he was not ‘born again’ while there, nor did he gain
victory over the devil at that time. Jesus was not a sinner and, therefore, did
not need to be born again”.[vii]
2. The King James version of the Bible,
though a very good translation and beautifully written, contains some rendering
of words which have the potential to cause misunderstandings for a 21st
century reader. Jesus went to hades,
which is not the same as hell.
[i]Christian Classics Ethereal Library
website, “Apostles’ Creed”, accessed 13 Apr 2009,
<http://www.ccel.org/creeds/apostles.creed.html>.
[ii]
Strong’s, 1588.
[iii]
Zodhiates, Spiros, Executive Editor, The
Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, (Chattanooga, TN: 1996), p. 1575.
[iv]
Strong’s, 1599.
[v]
“They built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to
cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which
I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this
abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jeremiah 32:35).
[vi]Norman
Geisler and Ron Rhodes, Correcting the
Cults (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1997), p. 253.
[vii]Ibid.,
pp. 253-254.
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