Jesus Did Not Descend to Hell

October 17th, 2009 by

Those who believe in a literal burning hell as a place of torment (where the bad folk get sent at death), often use the NT references to God not leaving Jesus’ “soul” in hell and Jesus descending to “the lower parts of the earth” to support such beliefs.  But is there validity to that?  Did Jesus really go down and get tormented for the three days and three nights he was in “the belly of the earth”?

Well IMO that was a REAL SHORT TRIP if Jesus was paying for the sins of all mankind. Typically those that believe in a literal hell as a place of punishment, say that the wicked will spend an eternity there.  But if that is the punishment, why did Jesus get out after three days?  The rest of us have but one life and we’re to spend eternity there if we end up on the “bad list”?  Yet Jesus in paying for the sins of EVERYONE only gets three days?  Something doesn’t really seem logical about that.

Well I would say that Jesus only descended into the Biblical Hell – the GRAVE for three days.  For the wages of sin is simply death.  And Jesus did die.  So if death is the payment for sin.  And Jesus never did sin.  Then his undeserved death really could be a substitute for us.

The following article from David Burge – who publishes a magazine of “The Conditional Immortality Association of New Zealand” and has a website for the same (called Afterlife), shows that Jesus did not go to a literal hell of any kind.

He Did Not Descend To Hell

by David Burge

A clause in the Apostles Creed says of Jesus, “He descended into hell”. This controversial statement comes after the clause that says, he “was crucified, died, and was buried” and before the statement that “He arose again from the dead.” This phrase is not found in the oldest forms of the creed. It first appears in one of two versions by Rufinus (AD 390) for whom it meant nothing more than that “he was buried”. It is not included in any other version of the Creed until AD 650 (See “How Orthodox Are We?” David Burge, Issue 16 pp. 14-16). For most people, however, it reflects a widespread belief in a supposed mission of Christ to preach the gospel to the spirits of the departed in the time between his death and his resurrection.

TIME PRESSURE?

A minority of preachers actually suggest that Jesus went to “hell” for three days and three nights to be tormented by the Devil and his angels! Those who hold the so-called “traditional view” and wrongly believe that Christ’s promise to the penitent thief was, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), find themselves under considerable time pressure, in this case. If Jesus died “that day”, as did the thief, but Christ went to hell and the thief to heaven, how could Jesus be with the thief “that day” in paradise? In John 19:30, Jesus pronounced, “It is finished.” This suggests that the full extent of the wrath of God against sinners had already been poured out upon Jesus as our substitute. In any case, Romans 6:23 informs us that “the wages of sin is death” not torment in hell. What purpose would be served by such a descent into hell?

A MORE COMPLEX SCENARIO

Others have suggested a more complex scenario whereby “hell” is divided into two compartments known as “Hades” and “Abraham’s Bosom” (according to a literal reading of Luke 16). “Hades” is the abode of the wicked dead during the intermediate state, between death and resurrection. “Abraham’s Bosom” was the abode of the righteous dead up until the time of Christ’s own death and resurrection. With this potted geography in mind, we are asked to believe that, during the time between his death and resurrection, Jesus visited the “spirits” of the wicked in Hades to proclaim his victory there. Having done that he slipped over the divide into “Abraham’s Bosom”, not only to proclaim his victory over sin and death but to free the souls of the righteous from “paradise” (the intermediate place) and bring them with him to Heaven.

SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT?

Scriptural support for this supposed mission of Christ is drawn primarily from four passages: Acts 2:27; Rom. 10:6-7; Eph. 4:8-9; 1Pet. 3:18-
20. A close study of these texts reveals that there is no biblical support for the traditional understanding of the “descent into hell”. ACTS 2:27 In his famous Pentecost sermon, quoting Psalm 16:10, Peter says, “[T]hou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 2:27, KJV). On the face of it the passage does say that Christ’s soul, or he himself, went to “hell”. However nearly all scholars today recognize that Sheol / Hades here refers to the grave (See Acts 2:27, NIV). In context Peter is comparing Jesus who rose again from the grave to King David whose tomb “is with us to this day” (Acts 2:29). This verse, therefore, lends no support to the traditional understanding of the “descent into hell”. It affirms only that Jesus died, that he was buried and that he rose again (1Cor. 15:3,4).

ROMANS 10:6-7

In Romans 10 Paul asks two rhetorical questions (using quotations drawn from Deuteronomy 30:13) concerning the nearness of Jesus and the righteousness that comes by faith. The question, ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead), is actually a question of unbelief, not an assertion of Christian dogma. It is wonderful to know that Christ is as near as confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart (Rom. 10:9). There is, however, no affirmation of any actual descent into hell in this verse. EPHESIANS 4:8-10 In Ephesians 4, Paul writes, “In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean except that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?” The phrase, “the lower parts of the earth”, is understood by some to refer to “hell”. The translators of the NIV make clear, however, that Christ came (watch the punctuation!), to “the lower, earthly regions.” That is to say, the “descent” of Christ was not a descent to hell but rather a descent “from heaven to earth”. Jesus is portrayed as a victor, having conquered Satan, sin and death he hands out the spoils of the battle as spiritual gifts to his church. Once again, these verses do not support a descent into hell. Rather the descent is from heaven, to earth, and back to heaven.
1 PETER 3:18-29

The passage most often urged in support of “a descent into hell” is 1 Peter 3:18-19. The meaning of this text is, however, far from clear. It has been debated at almost every point. My own understanding of the text is as follows:

  • While Noah was building the Ark evil angels appeared in the likeness of men and took to themselves human women (Gen. 6:1-4 . c.f. Job 38:4-7).
  • These evil angels were arrested and placed in suitable confinement to await their final judgment (2Pet. 2:4-5, Jude 6). Note that the word used of this prison is NOT any of the words regularly used for “hell”.
  • It is to these “spirits in prison” that Christ went and proclaimed his victory! Note here that the word “spirit” is never used of human beings without qualification – i.e. “spirits of just men” etc, but is regularly used of angels good and bad.
  • As to the timing of this proclamation, it is nowhere said that it was made during the three days between Christ’s death and resurrection. I believe it was made immediately after his resurrection! Only then could Jesus proclaim the victory he had won.

This interpretation fits the flow of the passage, from Christ’s death, to his resurrection, to his proclamation, to his ascension into heaven to be at God’s right hand. There is no room here for the traditional “descent to hell”.

CONCLUSION

Christ won a great victory on the cross. Unlike David, who still lies in the tomb, Jesus rose from the dead. He is as near to us today as the faith in our hearts. By the Spirit of God, he has already begun to share the spoils of his victory with his church. He was in the grave for “three days”. After his resurrection, before he ascended into heaven, he did proclaim his victory to the rebellious spirits God had imprisoned long ago in the days of Noah. Scripture is clear, however, he did not “descend to hell” in anything like the traditional sense.

- David Burge (Issue 33, March 2007)

12 Comments »

12 Responses to “Jesus Did Not Descend to Hell”

  1. on 17 Oct 2009 at 8:23 pm1 Ray

    My understanding of Genesis 6:1-4 is that those men who worshiped God, calling upon his name as Enoch did, became the sons of God being led by his spirit, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit
    of Christ who was in the world but was not known by the world, and was not seen till he was born of a woman who had never known a man.

    The giants spoken of in Genesis 6:4 cause me to wonder if they were the dinosaurs of old, whose bones can be seen in some of the great museums of today.

    It seems to be that when sons of God fall, they can go from the highest heights to the lowest of depths.

    It seems to me that Jesus went bodily to the grave, while his spirit went to God where he released it to go at the cross.

  2. on 18 Oct 2009 at 9:16 pm2 David Burge

    Thanks for your recommendation of our work.
    Many may not have been able to access our website of late. In a recent post I said:
    “Tarnya, Rachel and Ruth (the “girls” in our household) are in England. I am at home looking after (or being looked after by) our six boys (ages 4 to 15). This will explain why I have not made regular posts of late.
    Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, I am having some technical problem with the website. Only the home page seems to display. Tarnya deals with the technical stuff. I have been in contact. Hopefully the issue will be resolved by Monday evening.”
    I am happy to be able to report that the technical problem has been resolved and we are now back in business though I am still “home alone” and will be posting a little less regularly.
    Thank you for your patience.

  3. on 20 Oct 2009 at 3:04 am3 Jaco

    Good day,

    Thank you for a great article. Ray, I’d like to reply on your post above.

    David Burge’s reference to the angels in Gen. 6 is exegetically the more natural and valid conclusion.

    “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown”
    (Gen. 6:1-4 ESV).

    Note that it says that man bore daughters and sons of God took as their wives any they chose. Then, what was born had to be limited in their lifespan, so God limited their years to 120 years. The Nephilim could not refer to dinosaurs, since the Nephilim were born of these daughters when “the sons of God came in to the daughters of man,” or had sexual intercourse with them.

    Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7 refer to angels as God’s sons.

    2 Peter 2:4 speaks of the “angels when they sinned”

    Jude 6, 7 compares “the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority”, with “Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after alien flesh.”

    Too many unrelated factors have to be forced onto the text to give it any other meaning than this one.

    As regards your comment on Jesus’ death, you are quite right that Jesus’ spirit returned to God. We just need to understand what is meant by spirit. It is the ruach (Heb.) or invisible force of Yahweh by which he, among other things, animates beings. But this whole death event of Christ meant atonement for our sins. It wasn’t a dead corpse who paid for us. Jesus sacrificed his whole being, his soul for us.

    Thank you

    Jaco

  4. on 20 Oct 2009 at 4:04 am4 Xavier

    According to the ESV Study Bible there are various “schools of thought” regarding the identity of the “sons of God”:

    Various scholars have proposed that the “sons of God” are (1) fallen angels (cf. Job 1:6; some, however, suggest that this contradicts Mark 12:25, though the reference in Mark is to angels in heaven; see also 2 Pet. 2:4–5; Jude 5–6); or (2) tyrannical human judges or kings (in the ungodly line of Lamech, possibly demon-possessed); or (3) followers of God among the male descendants of Seth (i.e., the godly line of Seth, but who married the ungodly daughters of Cain). Though it would be difficult to determine which of these three views may be correct, it is clear that the kind of relationship described here involved some form of grievous sexual perversion, wherein the “sons of God” saw and with impunity took any women (“daughters of man”) that they wanted. The sequence here in Gen. 6:2 (“saw . . . attractive [good] . . . took”) parallels the sequence of the fall in 3:6 (“saw . . . good . . . took”). In both cases, something good in God’s creation is used in disobedience and sinful rebellion against God, with tragic consequences. Only Noah stands apart from this sin. (See note on 1 Pet. 3:19.)

    As to the the origin of the Nephilim, “the term is uncertain”:

    “It occurs elsewhere in the OT only in Num. 13:33, where it denotes a group living in Canaan. If both passages refer to the same people, then the Israelite spies (Num. 13:33) are expressing their fears of the Canaanites by likening them to the ancient men of renown. Although in Hebrew Nepilim means “fallen ones,” the earliest Greek translators rendered it gigantes, “giants.” This idea may have been mistakenly deduced from Num. 13:33; one must be cautious about reading it back into the present passage. The Nephilim were mighty men or warriors and, as such, may well have contributed to the violence that filled the earth (see Gen. 6:13).

  5. on 20 Oct 2009 at 4:07 am5 Xavier

    PS: From the ESV Study Bible:

    1 Pet. 3:19 spirits in prison. There is much debate about the identity of these spirits. The Greek term pneuma (“spirit”), in either singular or plural, can mean either human spirits or angels, depending on the context (cf. Num. 16:22; 27:16; Acts 7:59; Heb. 12:23; etc.). Among the three most common interpretations, the first two fit best with the rest of Scripture and with historic orthodox Christian doctrine. These are:

    (1) The first interpretation understands “spirits” (Gk. pneumasin, plural) as referring to the unsaved (human spirits) of Noah’s day. Christ, “in the spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18), proclaimed the gospel “in the days of Noah” (v. 20) through Noah. The unbelievers who heard Christ’s preaching “did not obey . . . in the days of Noah” (v. 20) and are now suffering judgment (they are “spirits in prison,” v. 19). Several reasons support this view: (a) Peter calls Noah a “herald of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5), where “herald” represents Greek kēryx, “preacher,” which corresponds to the noun kēryssō, “proclaim,” in 1 Pet. 3:19. (b) Peter says the “Spirit of Christ” was speaking through the OT prophets (1:11); thus Christ could have been speaking through Noah as an OT prophet. (c) The context indicates that Christ was preaching through Noah, who was in a persecuted minority, and God saved Noah, which is similar to the situation in Peter’s time: Christ is now preaching the gospel through Peter and his readers (v. 15) to a persecuted minority, and God will save them.

    (2) In the second interpretation, the spirits are the fallen angels who were cast into hell to await the final judgment. Reasons supporting this view include: (a) Some interpreters say that the “sons of God” in Gen. 6:2–4 are angels (see note on Gen. 6:1–2) who sinned by cohabiting with human women “when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah” (1 Pet. 3:20). (b) Almost without exception in the NT, “spirits” (plural) refers to supernatural beings rather than people (e.g., Matt. 8:16; 10:1; Mark 1:27; 5:13; 6:7; Luke 4:36; 6:18; 7:21; 8:2; 10:20; 11:26; Acts 5:16; 8:7; 19:12, 13; 1 Tim. 4:1; 1 John 4:1; Rev. 16:13–14; cf. Heb. 1:7). (c) The word “prison” is not used elsewhere in Scripture as a place of punishment after death for human beings, while it is used for Satan (Rev. 20:7) and other fallen angels (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). In this case the message that Christ proclaimed is almost certainly one of triumph, after having been “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18).

    (3) In a third view, some have advocated the idea that Christ offered a second chance of salvation to those in hell. This interpretation, however, is in direct contradiction with other Scripture (cf. Luke 16:26; Heb. 9:27) and with the rest of 1 Peter and therefore must be rejected on biblical and theological grounds, leaving either of the first two views as the most likely interpretation.

  6. on 20 Oct 2009 at 12:16 pm6 Ray

    Genesis 6:4
    There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that…

    So it appears that these “giants” whoever or whatever there are or were, were before the sons of God , whoever or whatever they were, who came into the daughters of men.

    It seems to me that a giant can be anything big. These “giants”
    whatever or whoever they were, were in the earth in those days.
    In addition, after this, there were sons of God who married the daughters of men.

    Because of this I still wonder if they were dinosaurs.

  7. on 20 Oct 2009 at 12:16 pm7 Ken

    Xavier,
    Thanks for sharing this.
    I think it is clear that options (1) and (2) from the above comment (#5) are the only 2 possibilities that fit with the Scriptures. Your comments about the “Sons of God” and the Nephilim are important observations. Sometimes we don’t have a definitive interpretation, but things can be narrowed down to the few Scriptural possibilities that could make sense.

  8. on 20 Oct 2009 at 7:14 pm8 Ray

    It seems that whatever these giants were, that they no longer were in the earth. It looks like to me, that it was during that time after, that the sons of God took to them wives.

    The gifts of God promote men, but gifted men who go corrupt , often use their might for serving self interests and become tyrants.

  9. on 21 Oct 2009 at 4:09 am9 Xavier

    Ray, “the Nephilim [giants] were on the earth in those days—AND ALSO AFTERWARD…” [Gen 6.4]

    “And there we saw the g Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves h like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” Num 13.33

    So it appears that the so-called “giants” survived the flood. Then again…

    Given the exaggerated tone of the spies’ account, their reference to Nephilim is most likely an expression of their fear and an excuse for their disobedience, rather than an accurate statement indicating that the Nephilim were still living after the flood. [ESV]

  10. on 21 Oct 2009 at 9:54 pm10 Ray

    It appears to me that the giants were in the earth in the days before the flood, then there was a time (still before the flood)
    when they were not any longer in the earth, but later in Numbers
    there were giants.

  11. on 22 Oct 2009 at 4:32 am11 Jaco

    Ray,

    The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown”
    (Gen. 6:4 ESV).

    The Nephilim, as seen in this context, came from the union between the sons of God and the daughters of man. In Hebrew these mighty men were called gibborim, or giants. This reference is never given to animals. In fact, in Isa. 9:6, one of the names given to Messiah would be El Gibbohr, or Mighty God.

    In the case of monstrous animals, the words nachash (serpent/dragon) or tanin (monster/sea monster) would most probably have been used.

    I agree with the ESV Bible on Numbers 13:33, where those Anakim were metaphorically called Nephilim, undoubtedly due to their similarity to the gibborim in Gen. 6. Much like calling Satan the Serpent due to the obvious similarities in Genesis.

    Just my thoughts,

    Jaco

  12. on 22 Oct 2009 at 8:13 pm12 Ray

    Jaco,

    These Nephilim were in the earth, as we know that they were,
    (whatever Nephilim is) for we know that they were in the earth in those days, but after that, ….these sons of God (who or whatever
    they were, I believe them to be the godly men who called upon the name of God) still went on taking unto them the daughters of men
    (the women who were not walking by the spirit of wisdom and truth that is in Christ Jesus)

    Even after these Nephilim (whether Stegasauraus or big people or whatever) were and were no longer on the face of the earth, the sons of God kept taking the daughters of men as their wives, the unglodly.

    It’s entirely possible that a Nephilim in Genesis 6 is not the same as a Nephilim mentioned later on (after the flood) for the word may be as our word
    “giant” which does not say by itself if it is in reference to a big person, or a big thing.

    If fact, it seems to me that this verse in Genesis is saying that these “giants” (call them what you like) were in the earth and then were not in the earth, and as men who before they (the giants) were not in the earth, married wives of the ungodly, even after the
    giants were no longer in the earth, they still went on marrying as they did before.

    So as the time the giants were in the earth, godly men married women of the ungodly, and then after the giants were no longer in the earth,
    the godly men continued to marry the ungodly women, being unequally yoked.

    That’s what it looks like to me. So it seems to me that the Nephilim
    before the flood, must have been a “horse of a different color” than the Nephilim that came later.

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