Hell's Destruction

An Exploration of Christ’s Descent to the Dead

Catherine Ella Laufer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781409451945
• eBook ISBN: 9781317122647
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The credal affirmation, 'he descended to the dead', has attracted a plethora of views over the centuries and many Christians today struggle to explain the meaning of these words. This book explores various interpretations of the doctrine of Christ's descent to the dead, both within particular historical contexts and within contemporary theology. Laufer argues that the descensus clause, Christ's descent, is integral to Christian faith, specifically to the doctrine of the incarnation. If we are to affirm that, in Christ, God became truly human then that affirmation must include his sharing in the state of being dead that is the ultimate consequence of being human. Laufer concludes that, since the Son has experienced genuine human death and the separation from God which is the essence of hell, there is no longer any human condition from which God is absent, either in this life or in eternity. Christ's descent means that he is truly 'hell's destruction'. Drawing on a treasure trove of writings from the western theological tradition, including Luther, Calvin, Maurice, Balthasar, Moltmann and others, and attending to historical, theological, exegetical, philosophical and pastoral issues, this book explores an often-ignored doctrine which lies at the core of Christian life, death and faith.

Chapter 1
Reflections of the Early Church

The central tenets of Christianity are the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: the belief that, in Jesus of Nazareth, God became a human being, died as all humans die, and was raised from death. Between the moment of his death and his resurrection – three days as the Romans reckoned time – his body lay in a tomb. According to the cosmology of the time, his soul would have been with the souls of the dead, in the underworld. The very language used for the resurrection – ‘raised’ from the dead – reflects this cosmology. It is present in the first sermon on the resurrection preached by Peter on the day of Pentecost. Peter states that Jesus was ‘crucified and killed … But God raised him up, having freed him from death …’ (Acts 2:23, 24). Peter then quotes Psalm 16:10, ‘For you will not abandon my soul to Hades’ (Acts 2:27a) and applies it to Christ. The implication is that Christ’s soul had been in Hades. This would need no further explanation for Peter’s hearers in the first century: even the minority who did not believe in the immortality of the soul understood that Hades was a place beneath the ground which, according to majority belief, housed the souls of the dead.

Peter’s audience would have been surprised by his statement that Christ was raised from death to be ‘exalted at the right hand of God’ (Acts 2:33), that is, he was raised up from the underworld to the heavenly realm above the sky, the dwelling of God. To reiterate, the cosmology of a three-tiered universe which lies behind Peter’s words was not strange to his hearers. The novel aspect of apostolic preaching was the claim that resurrection had occurred. In the first century, most Jews believed that the righteous would be raised bodily at the end of time (the eschaton).1 The resurrection of Christ, therefore, implied that the eschaton was about to occur. When it did not, the primitive Church extended its understanding of Christ’s resurrection and ascension to incorporate the souls of dead Christians, believing that the souls of the faithful who die before the eschaton will be with Christ in heaven rather than joining the dead in Hades. This progression is evident in the New Testament texts. Early writings expect Christ’s imminent return; later texts speak of the saints in heaven (for example, Revelation 6:9).

This developing belief raised questions about other righteous souls. If the souls of Christians who die after Christ’s resurrection go to heaven, then what of the souls of the faithful of the first covenant, the patriarchs and prophets, who had looked forward to the coming of the Messiah? Were they condemned to remain in Hades until the eschaton or did Christ’s resurrection from Hades affect their state in the afterlife? Over time, the question was extended to include the just of other nations and, eventually, the just who live after Christ but who have not heard the Gospel. Slowly, a range of views developed until, in the fourth century, the doctrine was formalised in credal expression. This doctrinal development is the subject of this chapter. As the Church’s reflections upon Christ’s descent were grounded in Scripture and occurred within the context of the ancient world’s understanding of the afterlife, we first examine that context and the scriptural texts which have been used as a basis for the doctrine.

Concepts of the Afterlife

For ancient peoples who believed the earth was flat, the netherworld lay beneath the surface of the earth. Images of what that world was like differed considerably. Classical Greek mythology placed all the dead in a gloomy subterranean world presided over by the god Ἅδης, Hades, after whom the underworld was named. Later Greek belief separated Hades into different regions where the good were rewarded and the evil punished. This was the prevailing view in the Graeco-Roman world of the first century CE, although a minority denied the immortality of the soul.2

Early Hebrew thought was similar to that of classical Greece.

, Sheol, the underworld, was a place of shadows; whatever survived of a human being there was something less than human; existence there approached oblivion and could not be termed ‘life’ after death. Like the classical Hades, Sheol held good and evil in the same condition.

By the first century CE, the land of Israel had been successively conquered by the Babylonians, the Greeks and the Romans. There were sizeable Jewish communities in Athens, Rome and Alexandria. Jews had come to know the beliefs of their conquerors and their fellow citizens. It is not known precisely when belief in an afterlife incorporating punishment and reward entered popular Jewish faith; it is apparent in intertestamental literature of the Second Temple period. Parallel to the development of beliefs in the afterlife was the growth of apocalyptic literature which spoke of the bodily resurrection of the righteous at the end of the age.3

By the first century, Jews held a variety of beliefs about the afterlife and resurrection. The Sadducees, primarily the priests and Temple officials, denied any concept of afterlife or resurrection. By contrast, the Pharisees and many of the common people believed in an afterlife with rewards and punishments and in eschatological resurrection. According to Josephus the Pharisees believed that ‘souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life’.4 Elsewhere, apparently expressing his own belief, Josephus writes of the virtuous dead, ‘their souls are pure and obedient, and obtain a most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the revolution of ages, they are again sent into pure bodies’, and that the souls of the wicked, ‘are received by the darkest place in Hades’.5 Other groups such as the Essenes held to variations on these themes.6

Reflections of this variety of beliefs can be seen in the New Testament. That Jesus himself believed in the eschatological resurrection is evident in his debate on that subject with the Sadducees (Matthew 22:23–33 and parallels). In Luke’s gospel, there are two occasions on which Jesus refers to the experience of souls after death but before the eschaton. First, there is the parable in which a selfish man’s soul is in torment in ἃδης, Hades, while that of a poor man is comforted in ‘Abraham’s bosom’ (Luke 16:19–31). This parable has much in common with a contemporary Egyptian folktale of which a Jewish version also existed. Commentators agree that Jesus’ use of this story is not an indication of his own beliefs but rather a call to moral behaviour especially care for the poor.7

The second instance of Jesus’ reference to the afterlife occurs in his dying promise to one of those crucified with him:

ἀμήν σοι λέγω, σήμερον μετ᾽ ἐμου̃ ἔσῃ ἐν τῳ̃ παραδείσιῳ.

Today, you will be with me in paradise (Lk. 23:43).

Here, the Lucan Jesus expresses his own belief in παραδεισω ‘paradise’. This word occurs in the Septuagint where it refers to ‘God’s garden’ (Genesis 2:8–10, 16). In intertestamental literature, ‘paradise’ come...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Reflections of the Early Church
• 2 The Credal Clause
• 3 The Medieval Period
• 4 The Descensus Clause in Reformation Debates
• 5 The Injustice of Hell
• 6 The State of Eternity
• 7 Theodicy, Trinity and the Descent
• 8 Hell’s Destruction
• 9 Incarnate Unto Death
• Bibliography
• Index