"Hell" No, It's Hades: Unveiling the Truths Behind the Virgin Birth and Jesus' Descent

Jon

Hey, everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church. This is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon. I serve as a pastor here at Peace, and I also get to serve as the weekly host of this show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions. And today I am here with…

Ryan

Hey, I'm Pastor Ryan, and I'm the lead pastor at Peace Church.

Jon

And today we get to talk some Christmas stuff, Pastor Ryan.

Ryan

Sweet. We do?

Jon

I mean, kind of. It's related to Christmas. Well, it's Christmas. It's Christmas week. Merry Christmas, everybody. In light of Christmas, we're going to talk about two topics related to Jesus, his birth and his death, and the Apostles Creed. So that's what we're talking about today. We had a couple of questions come in just about the Apostles Creed. So we're going to talk about does the virgin birth matter, which is a very Christmas topic. Then we're going to talk about did Jesus go to hell after he died? Which is a great question, and one I've heard many times, so excited to talk about that. So let's talk first about what is the Apostles' Creed and why do we say it? And we've got here with us today, producer Mitchell, who is also pastoral candidate Mitchell. So Mitch, now that you're in the pastoral candidacy program, you get to answer all the questions.

Ryan

Yes, and we get to ask the questions.

Mitchell

Starting with this one.

Jon

That's right. Awesome.

Ryan

What is the actual question? Like, what is the Apostles' Creed?

Jon

Yeah, yeah, yeah.Tell us about the Apostles' Creed.

Ryan

That's an easy one.

Jon

Okay, sorry, a harder one.

Ryan

We'll save it.

Question #1: What is the Apostle's Creed? Are there any Christian traditions that don't use it?

Jon

All right. Sounds good. The Apostles' Creed is just a nice, brief summation of the Christian faith that we've used for centuries. Now, Mitch, there's the big, broad overview question. Now, what's the particulars? When was it written? Who wrote it? What language was it written in? What are the great controversies around it? Is there any Christian traditions that don't use it? How many letters?

Mitchell

There aren't any Christian traditions that don't use it. Any Christian traditions that fail to even just affirm that, we would call not Christian or heretical. They would be outside of the church. But very, very early in the church, not actually written by the apostles, but very, very early on in the church, just to distinguish what is the basis of Christianity.

Jon

Sweet. Great summary. I like it. So we say it at Peace Church, before we do the sacraments, we think it's a great just a statement to say that quickly summarizes some of the core parts of the Christian faith, the Trinity, the Atonement, that kind of stuff. And so we say that. It's a great way, I think, to have in our minds and hearts the very core basics of Christian faith.

Ryan

Yeah, and even in the Apostles' Creed, I love how there's some things are more fleshed out than others. There's a lot of lines given to Jesus, even mentions Pontius Pilate. But yet, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, it just says, and we believe in the Holy Spirit. Yeah. It doesn't really flesh out the theology, what we'd say is pneumatology, but yet still kind of hits the fact that we believe in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit. So I love the Apostles Creed because it's something we all agree on, at least all those who are truly in the faith, but on the flip, I also love how it's brief, deep where it needs to be, but that doesn't elaborate where there can be differences.

Jon

Yeah. I also think of, sometimes I think of it when we're saying it before communion, I think of this is something that's been said for hundreds of years, and it's just kind of cool. Christians have been...

Ryan

So I grew up in a church that we said it every single Sunday as part of the close. We'd stand up and we'd say that as, I think, if I remember right, it was the very last thing we said every single Sunday. We would say the Apostles' Creed. Do you grow up with that? Do you grow up at all with anything like that?

Jon

No, I mean I grew up in more Reformed tradition, so it was more just, it was kind of like what we do now, surrounding the sacraments. I grew up more mainline, but it was one of the things that we said.

Jon

Alright, so let's talk about two of the topics in the Apostles Creed. Alright, so first question, does the virgin birth matter?

Ryan

It is critically essential to the Christian faith, to scriptural authority, to the essence and nature and validity of our salvation and testimony of Jesus. So, I think one of the questions that's come up in recent years is what if we found out that Jesus had a dad? It's often one of the questions that come up. Is that right?

Jon

Yeah, Rob Bell wrote in, I believe it was in Velvet Elvis, he asked that question, what if we found out one day that Jesus actually had a dad named Larry?

Ryan

Then we can forget the authority of scripture because the Bible says that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And so, you know, if that came about, number one, it's such a weird question to even ask because how would you find that out just through archaeology? But whatever. So going back, it would dismantle everything. I would lose all hope. I would stop being a pastor. The virgin birth is 100% essential to the nature of the Christian faith and everything that springs from it, both from biblical authority to the doctrine of Jesus. And so, you remove the virgin birth, then you remove the fact that Jesus was the God man. You remove the virgin birth, and now Jesus was born into sin like everyone else. And you remove the virgin birth and the nature of our salvation falls apart because Jesus is able to pay for our sins because he is fully God and he is fully man. And the reason we can say that is because he was born of the virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Jon

Yeah, amen. Should we put pastoral candidate Mitch on the spot here?

Mitchell

Sure. I was just going to ask, you know, for a while I always wondered why that was a tier one thing, like why we cannot deny that. But learning more about it, we learned that because he was born of a human, he was born by Mary, we know that he is fully man, right? Man has to atone for what man made wrong. And because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, we know that he's fully God. And God is the only one who can forgive sin. And so that's the beauty of that doctrine of the virgin birth. Like I said, it's a tier one level doctrine of our faith. Yeah, it's usually been used in the last hundred years. It was used just to define kind of what mainstream or what liberal theology was. Denying the virgin birth is kind of classic liberalism in theology world.

Jon

It's one of the ways that you go down that path, denying the virgin birth along with other supernatural miraculous elements.

Ryan

Yeah, because if Jesus was born of a man and a woman, then he's not God incarnate. He's just another person. Maybe he still went on to be the most influential person of all time, but he's still just a person. And he's not able to pay for sin. Because as Mitchell was just saying, because Jesus is the God-man, fully God, fully human, that makes him able to pay for the sins of people, of all people who would come to faith to him, because he has to be a human to pay for human sin, but no one human could pay for all human sin, only God can do that. So the fact that Jesus is both God and man, as Mitchell was just alluding to, makes him both able to pay for human sin and all of human sin for those who place their faith in him. Yeah. And that is a direct result because Jesus was born of the Virgin, because he is God incarnate, because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yeah, of infinite value, without sin. Yes. Yep. Yep. And because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that means he was not born into sin like the rest of humanity was.

Jon

Alright, so let's go on to the second one. I think this one is a little bit more tricky. This one I hear more frequently from people. So the second question is why... Actually, here, let me read exactly how somebody wrote it. They said, If we remove descended to hell from the Apostles' Creed, are we saying that Jesus didn't go to hell after his death? And if he didn't go to hell, how can we say that he took our punishment?

Question #2: If we remove descended to hell from the Apostles' Creed, are we saying that Jesus didn't go to hell after his death? And if he didn't go to hell, how can we say that he took our punishment?

So I think the person's kind of clinging on. Some churches, including Peace, we say he descended to the dead. So why do we say descended to the dead instead of descended to hell, and how does that affect Jesus takes away our sin?

Ryan

Yeah, so there's a lot going on with that question, and we're going to hold Mitchell's feet to the fire here on this one here. But I'll just say I grew up with the tradition that said that he descended to hell. And so when I jumped the mainline waters and swam to the lifeboat of Reformed theology, I found out that in our circles now we say he descended to the dead. Which you can clarify this for me, but I believe it goes back to the nature that the Apostles Creed was written in Latin, I think that's correct, and the word there that at once was and often times translated as hell, which we would say death now or dead is the word Hades. And then I think the notion there is that Jesus fully died. He went to the realm of the dead. Whatever that is, that's where Jesus went. And the notion there being like, there's Jesus fully died on the cross. He didn't pass out and wake up in the tomb. That he fully, fully died. And that's what the Apostles Creed is trying to underscore that when Jesus died on the cross he died in our place for our sins and so I think I think number one just to be completely honest with some of the some of the conversations I've had with the Saints, you know other Christians, especially those who are maybe a little more seasoned in life is Moving the language from hell to dead feels like a softening of theology to them. And that's not a trajectory that they want to see. And I respect that and I can appreciate that, that they don't want to see the next generation of church slip into softer theology, liberalism. And so they see changes like that and they think that's an indication of that. Where I think we would say, no, we're actually trying to be more faithful to the teachings of old. And that's actually what it was originally trying to say. Right.

Jon

Well, and actually going back, our oldest copies, our oldest copies of the Apostles' Creed don't have that line at all. They don't have either.

Ryan

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Mitchell

So there's actually six views of this doctrine, the idea that Jesus descended into hell, and only two of them are right. The first one is more of a Catholic teaching. It's that Jesus, when he descended into hell, he was preaching to those in purgatory and that comes from first Peter three. Yep. It's actually in the Catholic confession that this is what this means. So this is something that they ask that he went to hell. He went to purgatory. Yes. Yeah. Yep. So that's that's what they would say. The second is the the idea that he was preaching to the dead. He went to purgatory to preach to the dead of all of those who were before him in the Old Testament that had faith in Yahweh.

Ryan

But then he had the gospel.

Mitchell

Yes, and so this is him going back into this weird in-between state and preaching to them. The third is really made popular by Word of Faith preachers like Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Fred Price, that the idea that Jesus suffered in hell for our sins, that that's where he atoned for our sins. And there's nothing in the Bible that says that. Actually, I would make an argument against that because Jesus said it is finished.

Ryan

Yeah. And he said, today I will see you in paradise. And that's just it. I mean, I think this goes back to the question of not just theologically what was happening, but actually what was happening between Jesus' death and his resurrection, those three days, what was going on, where was Christ? And sorry, we kind of interrupted. We'll come back to that.

Mitchell

Yeah, and just anywhere in the Bible, it never talks about Jesus' atonement happening after he died. It's only on the cross and through his body.

Jon

Right, so I was pointing back to the cross. Atonement happened on the cross. On the cross.

Ryan

On the cross is when Christ suffered the full wrath of God. Yeah, absolutely.

Mitchell

The fourth is that he conquered Satan after dying on the cross. This was made popular by Luther, and it's just something that we would say is unbiblical because the Bible never makes a claim that Jesus fought Satan. But everything was conquered by Jesus on the cross. Again, it just points back to that. and reformed people would fall under. These are that Jesus' suffering was a spiritual anguish on the cross. This was actually made popular in the Middle Ages. John Calvin has a really great quote about this. The sixth one is dying and dwelling in the state of death. The Westminster talks about Jesus' humiliation and that Him going under death for a certain time was part of that. And so those are the two that we would say that we could kind of mesh those two together and say, okay, that's probably a more accurate view of what the Apostles Creed is talking about. Also, the Apostles Creed uses some figurative language when it says that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God the Father. They're not literally talking that there's a seat next to God the Father on the right with Jesus sitting there. So it's okay for us to see this.

Ryan

It's a symbolic gesture of his authority.

Mitchell

Yeah. And the same way we could talk about Jesus descending into hell.

Ryan

Yeah, I just think that while our tradition largely uses the word hell, I think to say he descended to the dead fits more theologically and scripturally. Because as you just mentioned, when Jesus was on the cross, he said to the thief on the right, today I will see you in paradise. And so the notion that when Christ died, he immediately went to the side of the father. So that removes the notion that he went to hell without removing the notion that he fully died. When Christ gave up his life on the cross, he went to the dead, meaning he fully died. And so that's where I completely resonate with the older saints who don't want to see us soften our theology and slide into liberalism. But I don't think moving from the word hell to the word dead is an indication of that. In fact, I think it's actually a stronger demonstration of us willing to maintain scriptural authority and write theology when we talk about our faith.

Jon

Right. So what we're trying to say is that Jesus not only suffered physically on the cross, he suffered spiritually. That he took...

Ryan

Many people died on the cross, right? I mean, like, dying on the... dying a death by crucifixion isn't enough to atone for your sins. That was part of it, the fleshly suffering of Christ, but there was a spiritual weight that is unimaginable that Christ assumed on the cross when God turned his face away. And I think it was R.C. Sproul, maybe we should double check this, but I think it was R.C. Sproul who said the notion that when the scripture said that Jesus gave a loud cry and then gave up his spirit, that that loud cry was the screams of hell through all eternity consolidated into one scream. And so the notion that Christ suffered fully the full wrath of God on the cross, which is why he was able to say, it is finished. All the work that had needed to be done to atone for our sins was completed by Christ on the cross. And that is our great hope.

Jon

All the anger, the wrath, the punishment that God has for sin went on Jesus on the cross. And I always, Scripture doesn't explicitly say this, but I always think of that being during the period of darkness, when everything gets dark in the middle of the day and Jesus is on the cross. It's like all the light goes out and God just pours out His wrath.

Ryan

So one of the, I think, hanging questions then is, what is Peter referring to then?

Jon

Oh man, 1 Peter 3 is an interesting passage. It's a tricky one. I've held out, personally, thinking about your six views, Mitch, I don't like the— obviously, we don't agree with the Catholic purgatory aspect of that one. Although I hold out that there's a possibility that maybe one way to take it would be that Jesus, you know, did descend and declare his victory. That's, you know, he declared his victory to some beings who were dead. I think that's possibly, you know, the case. We've got, you know, after the resurrection, though, when we have people coming alive and running around Jerusalem. So the timeline doesn't quite match up there. But I think that's a possible meaning of what 1 Peter 3 is talking about.

Mitchell

It's one of the things, too, that this is a creed. It's not Scripture. So for us as a church to decide that we're going to change words in there is okay. Like, these creeds aren't inherent.

Ryan

So yeah, the question of what was Jesus doing between his death and resurrection, that's an important question, one that we can search the scriptures for. But we're not going to look for our answer to that in the Apostles Creed. We're going to look in scripture for that. Yeah. Which is a separate issue. I know we want to wed the two, but it's actually it's a separate conversation. Yeah. I fully believe in Christ down on the cross. He ascended into glory after atoning for the sins of the world. And when Jesus said, today I'll be with you in paradise, that's that's where he went until his resurrection. Then he came back, triumphing over Satan's sin and death.

Jon

Which is what we will do also. I've actually had people ask me too, you know, where do saints go when they die? Is there a holding place in between?

Ryan

Oh, that's another huge question. Yeah, yeah.

Jon

No, there's no holding place in between. We go to paradise, just like Jesus said. Yeah, yep. I've gotten, it's interesting about that, I've gotten a number of people from our church as of late, because you know, we're growing and we're getting people from different backgrounds and different traditions and they're wanting to know what is our theology of post-death, pre-return of Christ. And what does that mean?

Ryan

And so that's something I think we'll have fun getting to at some point.

Mitchell

I think this can be maybe a bit of a downer talking about death and wrath, but I think that there's a really cool connection to the gospel here. As pastors, I'll back out of this as the pastoral candidate, I'll leave this up to you, but can you connect the gospel and bring this home for us?

Jon

Well, this is the very heart of the gospel, that Jesus took the death that we deserved. So because of sin, we deserve the wage of death, Romans 6 tells us. And Jesus took that wage on the cross, he bore not just physical pain, but spiritual pain, the wrath of God for our sin. He bore that on the cross and because he did that, we don't have to. We get to receive life. Amen. And for those who place their faith in that truth, we approach death differently and we respond to death differently. We don't grieve as those without hope, but we do so with immense amount of hope. And that's something the gospel offers that you can find nowhere else. That's right. So as you celebrate Christmas this year, celebrate the truth that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he came, he was the God man. And it's so critical that he was because that enabled him to die on the cross, not just for himself, but for our sin. He was able to be the infinitely valuable God and the perfectly sinless man on the cross dying to take away our sins. Praise God for that. Have an awesome Christmas this year.

Ryan

Yeah, Merry Christmas.

Jon

You can always ask more questions at peacechurch.cc/questions. Merry Christmas.

Ryan

Merry Christmas.