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Apostles Creed 11: He Descended into Hades

Christ Church on September 10, 2017

What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction
And so now we come to an odd one, one which reveals a fairly large gap in cosmology between a child of the biblical era and a child of the modern era. It is also a testing point, sometimes, for the most stalwart inerrantist. Wait, what? You think that an actual star came down and picked out a house in Bethlehem for the magi? And all God’s people, along with our Christmas cards, said, yup.

Cosmology answers the question of what kind of world you assume yourself to be living in. Is the cosmos mostly empty space, punctuated here and there by flaming gases and dead hunks of rock? And with our miniscule lives tucked away in some miniscule corner of it? Or is the whole thing an intricately designed artifact, one that fits easily in the palm of God’s hand?

The Text
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).

Jesus knew that He would die and go to Hades (Ps. 16:10). He also knew that He would be there for a brief time. It would be sometime less than four days—Lazarus began to see corruption after four days (John 11:39), and the episode with Jonah told Him exactly how long it would be. He knew on the strength of Psalm 16 that He would not be abandoned there. Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost, quoted Psalm 16 as a proof of the resurrection. “He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell [Hades, translating the OT Sheol], neither his flesh did see corruption” (Acts 2:31). Not only was this a prediction of a resurrection, but of a resurrection after a comparatively brief time in the grave. The Christ was to be in Sheol/Hades, but not for long.

Distinguishing Some Terms
The final judgment, the eternal lake of fire, is what Jesus called Gehenna. But this is different from Hades, which should be understood as the intermediate place of departed spirits. The Old Testament name for this place was Sheol. We distinguish Sheol/Hades from Hell proper because John tells us that death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14).

We are sometimes thrown off because many translations of the Apostles Creed say, “He descended into hell.” The problem with this is that the Lord did not descend into the lake of fire, into a place of torment. The Apostles Creed was originally written in Greek, and the word at this place is Hades, not Gehenna. The confusion occurred because Hel was the name of the Norse goddess who ruled over the underworld. In other words, our word Hell used to mean something more like Hades.

Symbolism . . .
In Scripture, the ultimate description of the final things is given to us in symbolic language. But do not play with this like a liberal. Liberals say that something is “symbolic” as a coping mechanism, trying to get the reality being represented to go away. But what is greater, the symbol or the reality being pictured? If the lake of fire is literal, it is really bad. If it is figurative, then it is actually far, far worse.

The word Gehenna comes to us from the Valley of Ben Hinnom outside Jerusalem. That was the dump, the landfill, where fires were constantly burning, and where worms never went extinct. It had been the place where Molech worship had once been conducted.

In the Old Testament Era . . .
In the time before the Messiah came, the expectation of the godly was to die and go to Sheol. Jonah (most likely) actually died and cried out to God from the depths of Sheol (Jon. 2:1). The psalmist expected that Sheol would swallow him up (Ps. 18:5; 86:13; 116:3).

In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, they both died and went to Hades. In that parable, Hades was divided in two by a vast chasm. The side where Lazarus was had the name of Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:23), while the rich man was in torment in Hades. Nevertheless, communication occurred across the chasm.
In our text, Jesus said that He was going to be three days and nights in the heart of the earth. But He also told the thief on the cross that He would be with him in Paradise that same day (Luke 23:43). So then, Abraham’s bosom was also known as Paradise. To the Greeks, this would have been Elysium. This is where Jesus went, and preached across the chasm.

The Greek word for the lowest pit of Hades, the worst part, was Tartarus. This word is used once in the New Testament (without any redefinition, mind). Peter tells us this: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Peter 2:4).

What Did the Lord Do While There?
While in Hades, the Lord preached. But the preaching was not “second chance” preaching. Rather the word used is one used for heralding or announcing, not the word for preaching the gospel. “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (1 Pet. 3:19–20).

He Holds All the Keys:
The Bible teaches us that Jesus is the king of all things. The devil is not the ruler of Gehenna—Jesus is. The lake of fire was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). Furthermore, Jesus holds the keys to Hades as well. “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [Hades] and of death.” (Rev. 1:18). When the Lord rose from the dead, He led captivity captive (Eph. 4:8)—all the saints in the Old Testament who had died and gone to Abraham’s bosom were transferred when Paradise was moved (Matt. 27:52). And by the time of Paul, Paradise was up (2 Cor. 12:4).

That at the Name of Jesus:
And so we preach Jesus, king of Heaven, and Lord of Hades. Hades is the place where He emptied out Paradise, and Hades is the place He will throw into the lake of fire. He is the king, I tell you. And so we proclaim Him, such that at the name of Jesus every knee might bow, whether in Heaven, or on earth, or under the earth (Phil. 2:10).

Apostles Creed 10: Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried

Christ Church on August 20, 2017

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction

The word crux helps us understand when we need to express the importance of getting to the crux of a matter—and crux comes from the Latin word for cross. Nowhere is this more important that in discussing the death of Jesus, the salvation of the world.

The Text

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text

“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

The death of Jesus was an historical event, as we emphasized last week. But if the death of Jesus were simply one more historical event, situated among numerous others, then this determination of Paul’s to emphasize that event alone would be curious and nonsensical. Why talk about this one thing, when there are so many other things that have happened?

The answer has to do with the radical nature of Christ’s death. The word radical comes from radix, which means root. The root principle is the cross, the intersection at the crossroads is the cross, the foundation and cornerstone is the cross. It is therefore possible to talk about Christ and Him crucified in relationship to absolutely anything else in the world and to do so without changing the subject. It is possible to move from the death of Jesus to any subject whatever, and to do so without lurching.

Died, and Was Buried

Let me begin with the aftermath of the cross—the death of Jesus. Jesus had a true human body, capable of dying. When He was nailed to the cross, He was in the process of dying. He died. He was not an apparition that seemed to die. He was not a true human being who only appeared to die, fainting from the torture. He was a man who could die, and who under those circumstances did die. The phrase that He was buried underscores this fact. His death was a true death. He was dead and buried. He was buried for three days. This exclamation point is part of the gospel as the apostle Paul recounts it. “how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose . . . ” (1 Cor. 15:3–4).

Was Crucified

There are four aspects of this momentous death which we must consider. We will define and consider each of them in turn. They are redemption, propitiation, co-crucifixion, and reconciliation. These are all described as happening in the cross. We will discuss another aspect of our salvation—justification—when we come to the resurrection (Rom. 4:25).

Redemption is the result of having been purchased or ransomed. Propitiation is the turning aside of wrath. Because of union with Christ, co-crucifixion is how we die when Christ dies. Reconciliation is the establishment of peace where before there was hostility. And the Bible describes all four of these as occurring in the cross of Jesus Christ.

Redemption

The Bible talks about the blood of Jesus as a purchase price, or as a ransom payment. With His blood Jesus purchased men for God (Rev. 5:9). Jesus referred to His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). We have redemption through His blood (Eph. 1:7). Jesus died as a ransom to set us free from the sins we had committed (Heb. 9:15). Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13).

Why? He redeemed us so that we could have the promise of the Spirit (Gal. 3:14), so that we might have forgiveness (Eph. 1:7), so that we could have liberation from sexual lust (1 Cor. 6:18-20), and so that we could be freed from actual slavery (1 Cor. 7:13).

Propitiation

The Bible talks about the death of Jesus as absorbing the blow that the wrath of God delivered. When people try to escape the Bible’s teaching on the substitutionary death of Christ, it is this element that often bothers them the most. But Scripture is clear. God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17, ESV). “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). In order to be just and the one who justifies, God sent Christ to be a propitiation (Rom. 3:25-26).

The word propitiation refers to that which satisfies the wrath of God.

Co-crucifixion

The Bible talks about the death of Jesus as somehow accomplishing a death, a most necessary death, for us. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). Paul confesses that he was crucified together with Christ (Gal. 2:20). We are not to boast in anything, except in the cross which crucified the world to us and us to the world (Gal. 6:14). Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh, and all its longings (Gal. 5:24). If we have been baptized, we were baptized into Christ’s death (Rom. 6:3), so that we might be freed from sin (Rom. 6:6-7).

Reconciliation

The Bible talks about how the death of Christ effected a reconciliation between us and God. “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” (Col. 1:21–22). God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing our trespasses to us (2 Cor. 5:18ff).

All Together

Because the wrath of God fell on us in Christ (propitiation) as the curse of the law, this means we were ransomed from the curse of the law (redeemed) so that we would be separated from everything that came before (co-crucifixion), with the end result that we now have peace with God (reconciliation).

Apostles Creed 9: He Suffered Under Pontius Pilate

Ben Zornes on August 13, 2017

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
This portion of the Creed points to something that is absolutely unique about the Christian faith. Our God is the God of all things, which means that He is the God of history. History matters, which means that historicity matters, which means the name of a Roman prefect, governing the small Roman province of Judea, is part of our foundational confession. Our God is the God of all things, which means that He is the God of history.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
“I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen” (1 Tim. 6:13–16).

Paul is here giving an earnest charge to Timothy, and he does so in the sight of the God who give life to everything, and in the presence of the same Christ who testified and made a good confession before Pontius Pilate (v. 13). The charge is that Timothy keep Paul’s commandment blamelessly until the Lord comes (v. 14). The Lord will manifest that coming in His good time, He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords (v. 15). God alone is the immortal one, He dwells in light that cannot be approached, He whom no one has seen or can see. Honor and dominion are His, and amen to all of it (v. 16).

The juxtaposition is this. Just as Christ made a good confession before a measly Roman provincial governor, so also, a fortiori, Timothy should imitate Him so as to be able to make a good confession in the presence of the only Prince, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one who represents the only wise God, He who dwells in unapproachable light, the one who possesses eternal honor and dominion. Christ could make the good confession over against Pilate, which He did with His royal silence and His bloody death. But there is no way for us to make a good confession over against God—we must do this in Christ, or not at all. The only refuge from God is to be found in God.

No Brute Facts:
We need to return to something that was said at the beginning, something that falls out of the necessity of a historical foundation for our faith. “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). It is not enough for this to be a consistent or coherent part of the Christian story, one of the tales we tell in our faith community. It is absolutely necessary that there be consistency between our confession of it as the truth, and the way things actually transpired out in the world.

There have always been certain theologians, too clever by half, who want to spiritualize things like the resurrection, as though we could be saved by an atomized platitude. But this confession about Pontius Pilate brings us crashing into history the way it actually was. Pontius Pilate as a Roman prefect cannot readily be turned into “a spiritual truth.” Try it. No, it is more like what we might call a “pedestrian truth,” and without it, our faith is in tatters.

So all facts are interpreted facts—and God is the ultimate interpreter. All history is interpreted history—with God the ultimate reader of history. This means that Jesus is Lord of all things. Is there then no common ground between the believer and the unbeliever? Well, yes, there is, but only so long as we know that Jesus is the Lord of the common ground.

Suffered Under:
We are saved through the passion of Christ on the cross. The word passion refers to His suffering. We are condemned, together with our sins, in the suffering of Jesus Christ. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26). “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Christ suffered for us, and that suffering was completed, and was entirely fulfilled at a certain place in the world, on a certain day, at a certain time of day.

“For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26). In other words, Christ’s sufferings were historical, not perpetual. A perpetual death is a non-efficacious death. “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Heb. 13:12). Because Christ suffered for you, and because His suffering ended on a particular day, therefore His blood sanctifies you and sets you apart. That is why a gallon and a half of blood could do what an endless river of blood could not do. Christ’s death was infinite in its value, but punctiliar and finite in its application. It is over.

Our old life died when Jesus died (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:3). Our new life begins when Jesus emerges from the tomb. He was raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25). He died so that we might die. He lives so that we might live. He lives forever so that we might live forever.

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
We have been working through the Apostles’ Creed phrase by phrase, but this week I thought it important to take two phrases at once. We are talking about that most remarkable of women, Mary. If some have erred through excessive devotion to her, we are not going to fix anything by withholding from her the honor that is due her. There are five persons named in the Creed—the Father, Son, and Spirit, and Mary, and then Pilate.

Summary of the Text:
“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:34–35).

Now the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee, the city of Nazareth (Luke 1:26). He there appeared to a virgin whose name was Mariam (we know her as Mary), and greeted her as one highly favored among women (vv. 27-28). She was troubled by this and tried to figure out what it could mean (v. 29). He told her not to fear because she had found favor with God (v. 30). He then told her that she would conceive a son, and the promises Gabriel then made concerning Him constituted a complete fulfillment of all the hopes of Israel (vv. 31-33). Mary asked how this was possible, in that she was a virgin (v. 34). The angel replied that she would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit, such that her child would be called the Son of God (v. 35). He also told her about her cousin Elizabeth conceiving in her old age, and of the greatness of God’s power (v. 36). Mary submissively accepted her assignment, and the angel departed (v. 38). Later, when the shepherds departed after their visit to the newborn Messiah, we are told that Mary treasured all these things in her heart (Luke 2:19). She is clearly Luke’s source for all this early material.

Clearing Some Debris:
We have come to an area where there is some overlap between classical Protestant theology and Roman Catholic theology, and so it is that some terms have gotten muddled up. We have to engage in some of what Wikipedia likes to call disambiguation. The Roman doctrine of the Immaculate Conception does not refer to the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb, but rather to the miraculous conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, a woman named Anna (according to tradition). They were attempting to solve the problem that we addressed earlier when we said that sinfulness is covenantally imputed through the line of the father.

And you will notice that in our version of the Creed, we say that Jesus was “born of the virgin, Mary,” instead of saying “born of the Virgin Mary.” The difference is this: the former means you are referring to the doctrine of the virgin birth. The latter use of Virgin as a title indicates a belief in the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. This is a teaching that holds that Mary conceived Jesus as virgin, which all orthodox Christians hold, but that her virginity was also miraculously preserved through the birth of Jesus, and that she also remained a virgin throughout the rest of her life. While some of the early Reformers accepted this, the general movement of Protestant theology has strongly rejected it.

“Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS” (Matt. 1:24–25).

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him” (Mark 6:3).

So Jesus had four named brothers (adelphoi) and at least two sisters (adelphai), which means that, counting Jesus, Mary had seven children. The virgin birth was an exaltation of her Son, and an honor to her, but not an exaltation of virginity.

Seed of the Woman:
The first Messianic promise in Scripture (Gen. 3:15) is one that comes in a threat to the serpent. God promises that the woman, deceived by the serpent, would have her vengeance. There would be two parallel lines down through history with perpetual enmity between them. There would be the seed of the serpent, that brood of vipers, and there would be the seed of the woman. When the great moment of deliverance finally came, the seed of the woman (Christ) would crush the head of the seed of the serpent (Satan). “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom. 16:20).

The Woman Gives Food:
When our first mother was deceived (2 Cor. 11:3), she gave Adam the fruit and he ate. We fell in our first father (Rom. 5:12), but it was because of food that our first mother gave him. Condemnation came through that present of food. And where Eve was deceived, Mary was not deceived. Eve disobeyed, and Mary obeyed. “Be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Jesus is the bread of life, and Mary was the woman used by God to hand that food to us. And so it was that the woman was fully avenged.

Remember, the destructive or redemptive work was done by the respective Adams. But don’t leave the women out of it—particularly don’t make the mistake of including Eve and leaving out Mary. There is a divine symmetry in all of this.