...descended into hell...?

[Montie_Claunch]

I ran into a version of the apsotles creed (could have been the nicene creed) and it said “…he suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crusified, died, and was baruied. He desceded into hell. On the third day he rose agian from the dead…”. Is this something the Church accepts? and could someone explain the thinking behind it? Thank you and God bless.

 

[RyanL]

This link will take you to the paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church where this is explained.

Please let me know what questions you have.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[allhers]

Jesus decended there as Savior, to deliver the holy souls who awaited HIM.(Jesus didn’t decend there to deliver the “damned” or to destroy hell), only to free the “just” who had gone on before Him. The Church tells us that the Gospel was preached even to the dead. (Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been makde sharers in the redemption.) Christ holds the keys of death and hades.

*at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

 

[Todd_Easton]

According to Webster’s Dictionary, Hell has several meanings, including: 1. the place where the spirits of the dead are: identified with Sheol and Hades. 2. the place where devils live and to which variously sinners and unbelievers are doomed to eternal ppunishment after death.

In the Apostles’ Creed meaning #1above for hell is intended: the place where the spirits of all the dead are, i.e., where the spirits of both the just in comfort and the unjust in torment were before Jesus opened heaven to the just and hell became only a place for those in torment (#2 above). It simply means that Jesus really died and his spirit departed from his body and went to that place where all disembodied spirits went after death.