Jesus descended into hell?

[qentank]

Did Jesus really descend to hell before he rose again from the dead? (y’know, we Catholics state it in the Apostles’ Creed)

I myself was rather surprised when I read the Creed in English… I am Indonesian and in the Indonesian translation, it is “tempat penantian”, literally, “a place for waiting (the dead)”. I felt unclear so I looked up the English version, and yeah, there you go.

I’m guessing it was for defeating Death, but I’m just curious. If anyone kindly refers me to a passage in the Bible that might suggest it. Thanks.

*PS. The Indonesian word for “hell” is “neraka”, but it is a very derogatory term… associated with evil and eternal damnation… and saying that Jesus going to “neraka” is simply unthinkable. *

 

[06convert]

Kind of. Remember, before Christ there wasn’t a way to get to heaven. So what happened to people when they died? Well they went to hell, although, not in the sense of eternal damnation like we normally think. They were in the level of hell that was bascially like a holding place for souls until the gates of heaven were opened. Jesus went there to release them.

He Descended into Hell

St. Peter tells us that Jesus “went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:19). “Prison” (Greek, Phulake) here refers to hell in the general sense of the place where departed souls rested prior to Jesus’ opening the gates of heaven. The Catechism explains that “he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there” (CCC 632).

After his death Jesus descended into hell to deliver the righteous who awaited him. The Catechism explains,
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 . . . 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 632-633)
I should also note here that “Abraham’s Bosom” was sometimes referred to by the Jews as “Paradise” (Greek, Paradaiso). This might explain why Jesus told St. Dismas, the good thief, “you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture explains, “‘Paradise’ . . . signified for the Jews the abode of the blessed. Here, if taken literally in its context, it signifies primarily the limbo of the just, to which Christ’s soul was presently to descend” (968).

So the word hell can be understood and used in a variety of senses. We also can see how our understanding of the concept of hell has developed over time. But what about hell as we commonly understand the term today: the eternal abode of the damned—the freely chosen state of eternal separation from God? Does Scripture support such an idea? We’ll look into this next time in Part II of our topic.