The Apostles Creed - Decended into Hell

[Ramalama]

The Apostles Creed says “He descended into hell”. I have read that Jesus went to hell to teach those that had died after the original sin, that Heaven had been closed until then. At least I think I read that.

Can anyone point to more information about this? Does anyone have a scriptural reference?

If this isn’t what it means and this is a false memory from a dream or something please laugh heartily.

 

[catholicmessage]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**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.477 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.478

**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.479 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”:480 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."481 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.482

**634 **"The gospel was preached even to the dead."483 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.

**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."484 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."485 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."486

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.”

 

[dylanschrader]

The Catechism is correct (of course ).

Christ descended into what is technically called the “limbo of the Fathers” Limbus Patrum, that is, the temporary state where the righteous who died before Christ’s death awaited the Redeemer. This is what is meant in the Apostle’s Creed and is translated in slightly older English as “hell.”

It is not the “Hell of the damned” where souls suffer for all eternity. It is impossible for Christ to descend to that state by definition.