Did Jesus go to hell?

[Wretched_one]

Did Jesus go to hell and if yes what happened there?

 

[ConstantineTG]

He tore down the gates of hell and redeemed those who have been waiting for their Savior there.

 

[hazcompat]

Second reading
From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday
The Lord descends into hell

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

peace

 

[Wretched_one]

Second reading
From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday
The Lord descends into hell

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear…

That means no one including Abraham, Moses and David went to heaven, but had had to go to hell before the time of Jesus. And from after his resurrection they and the future generations go to heaven.
A related question: What is the relationship of Satan with death and with hell? It seems to me as if he is the king of hell and Jesus had to demand the key to the gates of hell from him. Is it true that he is the king of hell? That does not seem like a proper punishment for rebellion against God. He should be burning in hell and not ruling it. What do you think?

 

[hazcompat]

That means no one including Abraham, Moses and David went to heaven, but had had to go to hell before the time of Jesus. And from after his resurrection they and the future generations go to heaven.

The homily is a meditation. Adam and Eve represent all of us. Sacred scripture speaks of Elijah and Enoch being taken up. Where? God knows! Consider the words "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. " Is there another “Way” save Jesus?

The Incarnation opens The Way between heaven and earth, time and no time. One of the desert fathers, writing of humility, suggested we consider even our imperfections of deserving hell. Then sitting in hell, as we deserve, He comes. There is no place our gracious Savior will not go for you.

Consider these words “Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven.” Rejoice and be at peace.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Did Jesus go to hell and if yes what happened there?

hell here is the “inferos” the place down where the souls of the dead were vaguing in the shadow.

 

[thistle]

Did Jesus go to hell and if yes what happened there?

The Church Teaching:

“HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN”

CCC 631 Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens.” The Apostles’ Creed confesses in the same article Christ’s descent into hell and his Resurrection from the dead on the third day, because in his Passover it was precisely out of the depths of death that he made life spring forth:

Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Paragraph 1. Christ Descended into Hell

CCC 632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.

CCC 633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.480 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.

CCC 634 “The gospel was preached even to the dead.” The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.

CCC 635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.” Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”

 

[graciew]

From the Caholic Encyclopedia:

Hell (infernus) in theological usage is a place of punishment after death. Theologians distinguish four meanings of the term hell:

•hell in the strict sense, or the place of punishment for the damned, be they demons or men;
•the limbo of infants (limbus parvulorum), where those who die in original sin alone, and without personal mortal sin, are confined and undergo some kind of punishment;
•the limbo of the Fathers (limbus patrum), in which the souls of the just who died before Christ awaited their admission to heaven; for in the meantime heaven was closed against them in punishment for the sin of Adam;
•purgatory, where the just, who die in venial sin or who still owe a debt of temporal punishment for sin, are cleansed by suffering before their admission to heaven.

 

[Kat_L]

When I was in Catholic school, they said the “hell” Jesus was referring to was the “limbo” where souls went before Christ died on the cross. They were “good” so they didn’t go to hell (as in the lake of fire). But they couldn’t get into heaven because Jesus had not yet opened the gates of heaven to them. So, they stayed in limbo where they were content-but could not see God.

That makes a lot of sense. Not being able to see God is hell-but they were not suffering as the damned do.

 

[mercytruth]

The apostle Peter said he did. Acts 2:24 "Whom God raised up, having loosed him from the sorrows of sheol, for it was not possible for him to be held by it."

This is the same ‘sheol’ that is spoken of by Jesus in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Evidently, ‘sheol’ in Hebrew, or ‘hades’ in Greek is where the Catholic church received the concept of Purgatory. Jesus was in that portion of Purgatory or Sheo, or Hades where there was ‘sorrow’.

 

[Carolus_Martell]

I’ve often wondered about that too.

I always took the meaning of hell in that prayer as a limbo type holding area as well.

We are told that Original sin prevented righteous souls from going to heaven but from the Transfiguration we can “assume” that Moses and Elijah weren’t in the hell that we’re all familiar with today.

And that would include the Patriarchs, David and the entire litany of the OT faithful…at least by my Rube Goldberg logic.

 

[mercytruth]

Carolus Martell,

One of the problems is that the Hebrew word, sheol, and its Greek equivalent, ‘hades’ is translated into English as ‘hell’. That would not be confusing, but the Hebrew word, ‘Gehenna’ is** also **translated into English as ‘hell’.

Gehenna and Sheol are two different concepts. Sheol is a ‘holding place’, while ‘Gehenna’ is the final place of the resurrected judgement. Revelation 20:14 speaks of this final place of resurrected judgement. It is called the ‘lake of fire’. Death and Sheol, or Hades are cast into this ‘lake of fire’ at the final judgement. Some early church fathers indicated that this would be an eternal judgement, others indicated that the resurrected body and soul of the damned would be destroyed in the lake of fire.

This is further complicated by the verse in Revelation that says, that Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the ‘abyss’. Which seems to be a different concept than either Gehenna or Sheol. Then there is the whole idea of trying to comprehend whether Satan is presently bound in this ‘abyss’, or whether he yet remains as the ‘prince of the power of the air’ as the apostle Paul speaks of in his letter to the church of Ephesus.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Carolus Martell,

One of the problems is that the Hebrew word, sheol, and its Greek equivalent, ‘hades’ is translated into English as ‘hell’. That would not be confusing, but the Hebrew word, ‘Gehenna’ is** also **translated into English as ‘hell’.

Gehenna and Sheol are two different concepts. Sheol is a ‘holding place’, while ‘Gehenna’ is the final place of the resurrected judgement. Revelation 20:14 speaks of this final place of resurrected judgement. It is called the ‘lake of fire’. Death and Sheol, or Hades are cast into this ‘lake of fire’ at the final judgement. Some early church fathers indicated that this would be an eternal judgement, others indicated that the resurrected body and soul of the damned would be destroyed in the lake of fire.

This is further complicated by the verse in Revelation that says, that Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the ‘abyss’. Which seems to be a different concept than either Gehenna or Sheol. Then there is the whole idea of trying to comprehend whether Satan is presently bound in this ‘abyss’, or whether he yet remains as the ‘prince of the power of the air’ as the apostle Paul speaks of in his letter to the church of Ephesus.

Satan is present with us in this world; He was cast down into “this” abyss.
If you do a word search for Tartarus, which is a place that the punishment fits the crime, a place of gloom and darkness in Greek thinking – you will find that Scripture assigns this place to the devils (for now). Tartarus is understood as being the pit, grave, or more commonly – the depths of the Ocean. I think in Genesis it mentions the waters above, and those below the firmament ?

In any event, abyss typically means grave or pit. The angels were thrown “down” from heaven, so this is a relative pitfall…

 

[Gorgias]

From the Caholic Encyclopedia:

This is the old (i.e., 1913) Catholic Encyclopedia, right?

Theologians distinguish four meanings of the term hell:

•hell in the strict sense, or the place of punishment for the damned, be they demons or men;

Note that this means the place of eternal punishment – it’s a terminus: once you get it, there’s no getting out.

•the limbo of infants (limbus parvulorum), where those who die in original sin alone, and without personal mortal sin, are confined and undergo some kind of punishment;

This is a theological supposition, and has never definitively been taught by the Church. Most recently, the ITC studied the issue and its findings were published on the Vatican web site. Their conclusion was that “the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptised infants who die will be saved and enjoy the Beatific Vision. We emphasise that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us (cf. Jn 16:12).”

•the limbo of the Fathers (limbus patrum), in which the souls of the just who died before Christ awaited their admission to heaven; for in the meantime heaven was closed against them in punishment for the sin of Adam;

And, of course, this is the one that you’re asking about: when the creed says “hell”, it means the limbo of the Fathers, or ‘sheol’.

•purgatory, where the just, who die in venial sin or who still owe a debt of temporal punishment for sin, are cleansed by suffering before their admission to heaven.

Conflating ‘purgatory’ with ‘hell’ is misleading. Contemporary theologians see purgatory as a foretaste of heaven, moreso than a close brush with hell. Those in purgatory are guaranteed admission to heaven; they are cleansed, so as to be able to stand in the presence of the perfection of God. The Catechism explains it this way: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.” (CCC, 1030-31)

Hope this helps!

 

[pablope]

That means no one including Abraham, Moses and David went to heaven, but had had to go to hell before the time of Jesus. And from after his resurrection they and the future generations go to heaven.
A related question: What is the relationship of Satan with death and with hell? It seems to me as if he is the king of hell and Jesus had to demand the key to the gates of hell from him. Is it true that he is the king of hell? That does not seem like a proper punishment for rebellion against God. He should be burning in hell and not ruling it. What do you think?

The word hell had a different meaning then compared to today.

This should enlighten you:newadvent.org/cathen/01055a.htm

According to the Jewish conceptions of that day, the souls of the dead were gathered into a general tarrying-place the Sheol of the Old Testament literature, and the Hades of the New Testament writings (cf. Luke 16:22; in the Greek 16:23). A local discrimination, however, existed among them, according to their deeds during their mortal life. In the unseen world of the dead the souls of the righteous occupied an abode or compartment of their own which was distinctly separated by a wall or a chasm from the abode or compartment to which the souls of the wicked were consigned. The latter was a place of torments usually spoken of as Gehenna (cf. Matthew 5:29, 30; 18:9; Mark 9:42 sqq. in the Latin Vulgate) — the other, a place of bliss and security known under the names of “Paradise” (cf. Luke 23:43) and “the Bosom of Abraham” (Luke 16:22-23). And it is in harmony with these Jewish conceptions that Our Lord pictured the terrible fate of the selfish Rich Man, and on the contrary, the glorious reward of the patient Lazarus. In the next life Dives found himself in Gehenna, condemned to the most excruciating torments, whereas Lazarus was carried by the angels into “the Bosom of Abraham”, where the righteous dead shared in the repose and felicity of Abraham “the father of the faithful”.

Abraham, Moses and the other OT righteous were in what Jews called Abraham’s Bosom, not the hell you are thinking of.

 

[pablope]

Did Jesus go to hell and if yes what happened there?

He preached to the spirits in prison.

1 Peter 3:19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison