A God Who Descends Into the Underworld Then Arises Again Renewed Is an Example of

Cached in the center of the Apostles' Creed is a profound mystery of the Christian organized religion, the affidavit that Christ 'descended into hell.'

This clause explains where Christ in the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection.

But this explanation raises a tempest of questions: Did Jesus really go to hell? How can it be possible for God Incarnate to feel hell, the state of final separation from God? What did Jesus exercise there? Did He really experience the everlasting fire that Scripture says is the lot of all those in hell?

Where Jesus went

Some Latin clarifies matters. In Latin, the word translated as hell in English language is inferna. In the ancient world, this give-and-take had the generic significant of underworld, not hell specifically. In the Vulgate it is used to translate a number of different Hebrew and Greek words from Scripture. Ii Greek words are especially of import here: hades and gehenna. Hades, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew sheol, is the biblical term for where righteous Israelites went who died earlier Christ. Gehenna, on the other hand, is the destination of the damned.

It is to hades—better known to Catholics as the Limbo of the Fathers—that Christ descended, Church building tradition says. Only, significantly, the power of His presence was nonetheless was felt in the farthest reaches of hell, co-ordinate to Aquinas.

Why Jesus descended

1. Consequences of a True Human Expiry: Affirming that Christ descended to hell reinforces the Church's belief that he died a true death, according to theologian Alyssa Pitstick (who has written an exhaustively in-depth assay of the doctrine of the descent in lite of the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Light in Darkness.) She points to a letter Pope Hormisdas issued to the Emperor Justin in 521 Advertizement, in which the pope stresses the reality of Christ'southward expiry as a cardinal truth of the Incarnation: "Just as that one was buried, who will to be born homo, but so He was who like the Male parent rose: suffering wounds and the savior of the wounded, one of the dead and the giver of life to the dead, descending into hell and not leaving the bust of the Begetter." This is why some creeds, other than the Apostle's Creed, simply country that Christ was buried and rose once more. Common to all creeds is the belief that Christ died a truly human death, Pitstick says.

2. Punishment for Sin: It was necessary for Christ, who bore the punishment for our sins, to practice and so completely, St. Thomas Aquinas writes in his commentary on the Apostles' Creed. That means being in hell, Aquinas writes: "The punishment for the sin of man was not solitary decease of the body, merely there was too a punishment of the soul, since the soul had its share in sin; and information technology was punished by existence deprived of the blissful vision; and as all the same no atonement had been offered whereby this penalisation would exist taken away."

3. Release of the Captives: Because of the Fall, the gates of heaven had remained closed, fifty-fifty to those who had lived righteous lives without mortal sin—men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. These holy men and women were imprisoned in Limbo of the Fathers. Christ'south descent, then, has always been understood as necessary to release the righteous dead and bring them into sky. One of the famous fresco in the Chora Church in modernistic-day Istanbul dramatically depicts Christ clothed in a bodily halo of light, clutching at the easily of Adam and Eve. Of form, 1 might nevertheless wonder why Christ had to descend to hell to release the captives. Couldn't He take simply opened heaven to them? In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas explains that the merits of the Cross are extended to Christians through "something special." For the living, that ways the sacraments. For the dead, information technology is the descent.

4. Fight the Devil: Armed with the Cantankerous, Christ went into the devil's home territory to conquer him in one case and for all. "At present, a person is perfectly vanquished when he is not only overcome in conflict, but also when the attack is carried into his very dwelling house, and the seat of his kingdom is taken away from him," Aquinas writes in his commentary on the creed. Equally St. John Chrysostom put information technology in his famous Paschal Homily: "He that was taken past expiry has annihilated information technology! He descended into Hades and took Hades captive!" Of course, the hell of the damned still exists, but only for those who deliberately choose to become at that place: on its ain, it has no power over man whatsoever more.

5. Denote the Gospel: This is the reason given in 1 Peter iii, which tells us that Christ "preached to those spirits that were in prison house." Merely this wasn't to convert the damned. Instead information technology was to "put them to shame for their unbelief," according to the Summa Theologica.

6. Hope for Souls in Purgatory: Christ had a bulletin for every region of hell information technology seems. For those in purgatory, it was good news, simply Jesus did non actually take them out of purgatory. Instead, he gave those souls "detained" in purgatory "promise of attaining to glory," Aquinas writes.

Lessons for the living

As incredible and important as the descent into the underworld was, what can nosotros, who are living today, larn from it? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Hope: In all the various trials and tribulations nosotros may comport, even when we find ourselves in the depths of sin and despair, the truth of the descent into hell insists that we even so concord to a firm hope in Christ. Aquinas put it best: "No matter how much one is afflicted, one ought always hope in the assistance of God and accept trust in Him. There is nothing then serious as to be in the underworld. If, therefore, Christ delivered those who were in the underworld, what corking confidence ought every friend of God have that he will exist delivered from all his troubles!"

Spiritual Consolation: Few, if whatever, Christians journeying through this life without ever feel a sense of abandonment by God. The silence is deafening, the darkness is blinding. But the descent outcome should assure us that even then, Christ is in that location with us. As then-Fundamental Ratzinger wrote in his Introduction to Christianity: "This article thus asserts that Christ strode through the gate of our final loneliness, that in his Passion he went downwards into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, at that place is he."

Holy Fear: As much equally it is a source of promise and condolement, the descent upshot should besides instill in us a good for you measure of fright. "We have already seen that Christ suffered for sinners and descended into the underworld for them. Nonetheless, He did non evangelize all sinners, just only those who were free from mortal sin. He left there those who departed this life in mortal sin. Hence, anyone who descends into hell in mortal sin has no hope of deliverance," Aquinas writes in his commentary. He recommends that the living should follow the example of Christ by descending into "hell by thinking of it" so that we "will not easily fall into hell at expiry."

Inspiration to Honey: "Christ descended into the underworld in order to deliver His own; and so nosotros should become down at that place to rescue our ain. They cannot help themselves," Aquinas writes. Specifically, he is referring to the earthly assistance we can render to our friends and family in purgatory. Church building Fathers like St. Augustine and St. Gregory take identified four specific ways of doing this: Masses, prayers, almsgiving, and fasting.

Awe and Wonder: Ultimately, the descent into hell should renew our awe and wonder at what Christ accomplished on the Cross. It besides should deepen our awareness and appreciation of His love: fifty-fifty later on the unimaginable suffering He endured on the Cantankerous—which culminated in a weep of abandonment from God the Father—Christ did not immediately rush back to heaven, He did non compress back from inbound the place of ultimate spiritual desolation and isolation to personally rescue those who had died earlier His crucifixion.

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Source: https://catholicexchange.com/did-jesus-really-go-to-hell/

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