Q. 32. Why did Christ descend to the dead?

• AOR 3

• Augsburg Confession 3.4

Body … grave. “His burial testifies that he really died” (Heidelberg Catechism 41).

Soul. As a true human being with body and soul (Q. 8; 30), Christ’s human soul remained conscious after death. The doctrine of Christ’s descent to the dead, or descensus, addresses the question of where his soul went and why.

Place of the dead. Before the resurrection of Christ, Scripture describes both righteous and unrighteous souls as going to the same general location, commonly called Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek. This invisible, spiritual realm was conceptualized as a shadowy region under the earth, the “nether world,” having separate “compartments” for the righteous dead (commonly called Paradise or Abraham’s bosom) and the wicked dead. Christ’s soul joined the righteous dead (Abraham and the other Old Testament saints).

Not to be punished. In the Apostles’ Creed, the Latin ad inferos (“to the dead”) and ad inferna (“into hell”) are used interchangeably; therefore, some translations say that Christ “descended into hell.” In the past, the English word “hell” could refer to the place of dead souls in general (Sheol or Hades), without any reference to torment. Christ was not punished for our sins in hell. His atoning work was finished on the cross.

Defeat death and Hades. “Our Lord triumphantly descended into the lower world, and took possession of the kingdom of the dead” (William Burt Pope, Compendium). Christ is Lord “under the earth” (Philippians 2:10), and now proclaims, “I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18). After the resurrection of Christ, Scripture describes the righteous dead as going directly to heaven.

No longer fear. As a father comforts his child by going ahead of him to turn on the lights in a dark room, Christ went ahead of us into the dark place called death and flooded it with the light of life. Luther wrote, “I believe that He descended into hell to overthrow and take captive the devil and all his power, guile and wickedness, for me and for all who believe in Him, so that henceforth the devil cannot harm me; and that He has redeemed me from the pains of hell, and made them harmless” (Luther, Brief Explanation).