What does "descended into hell" mean?

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jeff1946

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In The Apostles’ Creed it states that after He was buried Jesus, “… descended into hell…” What does that mean?

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Jeff
 
Let us look at the Catechism:
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. 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.
Jesus went to hell in order to bring the righteous to heaven with Him. It is only by the grace of God that any us of can attain heaven, it is not something we can earn. Thus the righteous had to wait for Jesus to suffer and die for all the sins of humanity before they could enter heaven.
 
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