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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
Christianity Today Book Award The Gospel Coalition Book Award "I believe he descended to the dead." The descent of Jesus Christ to the dead has been a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, as indicated by its inclusion in both the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds. Falling between remembrance of Christ's death on Good Friday and of his resurrection on Easter Sunday, this affirmation has been a cause for Christian worship and reflection on Holy Saturday through the centuries. At the same time, the descent has been the subject of suspicion and scrutiny, perhaps especially from evangelicals, some of whom do not find support for it within Scripture and have even called for it to be excised from the creeds. Against this conflicted landscape, Matthew Emerson offers an exploration of the biblical, historical, theological, and practical implications of the descent. Led by the mystery and wonder of Holy Saturday, he encourages those who profess faith in Christ to consider the whole work of our Savior.
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For B, Grandma, Aunt Jane,and all those in the communion of the saints who are,though absent from the body,now present with the Lord(2 Cor 5:8)
CONTENTS
PREFACE
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief.’
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
This haunting poem reminds us that death is inevitable for human beings. And while we may want to avoid acknowledging this pervasive reality, we all know it is true. We are bombarded daily, hourly, with grim news from both home and abroad. The list of celebrities who died in the past year, usually posthumously paraded via images at the Oscars, seems to grow longer and closer to home each year. Cancer, unforeseen accidents, murder, and plain old age take those acquaintances, distant relatives, coworkers, friends, spouses, parents, and children so often that it is easy to become numb to it. And yet despite all our attempts at avoidance and even with the growing numbness, one day we, too, will face the fact that our lives are about to end. In short, Death comes for us all. This pervasive reality, one to which the Bible bears witness and even personifies as one of God’s most ardent enemies, is apparent in the world around us. It is apparent in our own experience. When I first wrote this preface, my Aunt Jane was dying of ovarian cancer. After battling it for eight years (much longer than expected), she was facing her end in this present life. She could not eat or drink, and soon after passed away into eternity. And as I wrote this book, I thought of an acquaintance who lost twins in childbirth. This then reminded me of another friend who has lost a child at birth and his father to suicide, and who will one day lose his wife to a debilitating and chronic tumor on her spine. Death is all around us.
What, as Christians, can we say to those who face death, either their own or that of their loved ones? We certainly can give them the hope of Christ’s resurrection, if they or their loved one has trusted Christ in repentance and faith. We can also assure them that they do not grieve without hope because they, if they and their loved ones are Christ-followers, will one day see that loved one again. But here is what faces us in the meantime: the twin realizations that—unless we too pass on soon—we will not see them face to face for a long time and that this is because our loved ones no longer live bodily on this earth. Yes, they and we will be raised with Christ one day; yes, we have hope in the resurrection; and yes, they are with Christ. But on this last note, perhaps there is some further hope we can offer. Perhaps there is something more immediate than Christ’s second coming and believers’ resurrection to eternal life that we can preach to those grieving but not without hope. The hope that is more immediate, and one that is descriptive of our departed loved ones’ eternal state right now, not just some distant day, is that Christ, too, has experienced death. He did not just experience dying only to rise again moments later, but he actually remained dead in the grave. He did not simply have his breath expire and then immediately rise to glory, but his body was buried and his soul departed to the place of the dead. And because he is God in the flesh, he defeated the place of the dead and the grave by descending into them and then rising again on the third day. In the Christian tradition, this hope is known as the doctrine of Christ’s descensus—his descent to the dead.
Descents are everywhere. From Hercules and Orpheus venturing into Hades, to Harry Potter following the pipes down into the Chamber of Secrets, to the Sheriff and Joyce Byers frantically searching for Will in the Upside Down (in the Netflix series Stranger Things), we want our heroes to descend into the underworld, defeat the enemy, and rescue their loved ones. We want Maui to enter the Realm of Monsters and defeat Tamatoa in the Disney film Moana. We love seeing Doctor Strange enter the Dark Dimension, experience death ad infinitum, and thereby trick and defeat Mordo at the end of the film named after him. Our hearts swell while reading The Silver Chair as Jill and Eustace rescue Prince Rilian from Underland, and in The Lord of the Rings as Gandalf descends into the depths of Moria, gives up his own life to defeat the Balrog, and then rises again to save Middle-Earth. There is something fascinating about—a shared yearning for—a hero who can enter the underworld, defeat our enemies, and bring the dead back to life.1
This descent motif, so popular in ancient and modern mythology, is also found in the historic events of the Bible, climaxing in Christ’s descent to the dead between his death and resurrection. It might seem like an odd thing to meditate on the fact that Jesus remained dead for three days, and yet that is what I have done for the past two years, nearly daily, many times hourly and by the minute. It may seem even stranger to hear that, over the course of that time, this doctrine has become a source of comfort, amazement, and worship of our Triune God for me. That God himself would descend in the incarnate Son to take on human flesh and all that entails, including not only dying but remaining dead, in order to redeem us from the curse of sin, is at the heart of the good news. God the Son first descended when he took on flesh, and in doing so he experienced all that humanity experiences, including death and its temporal state. What good news is this, that God vicariously experiences not only life but also death with us through the incarnate Son? What gospel do Christians proclaim, except that Jesus has defeated all rulers, authorities, principalities, and powers, including death itself, and that he does so through dying for sin, remaining dead, and rising from the dead? And what hope do Christians have for those who, unlike those who read these words, no longer live? We who follow Christ have the hope that Jesus already experienced death, the state of being dead, with and for those who trust in his atoning death and victorious resurrection. This doctrine moves me to be comforted in the face of death. This doctrine comforts me as I grieve with those who grieve and as I remember those to whom I’ve dedicated this book. And it moves me to worship and praise as I comprehend more deeply each day what it means for God the Son to take on human flesh “for us and for our salvation.”
And yet this doctrine has been nearly abandoned in many circles, particularly conservative evangelical ones. While the descent is making a bit of a comeback these days,2 it remains either under fire or ignored in many evangelical circles. Some demand its excision from the Apostles’ Creed,3 while others call for its radical revision to the point that it is redundant with “he died, and was buried.” In many evangelical colleges and seminaries, the phrase “he descended to the dead” is trounced as a capitulation to misguided Roman Catholic notions of the intermediate state, purgatory, and justification. The motivation for writing this book arose out of my ever-growing appreciation for the doctrine in the face of what seems like an increasingly full-on assault of the doctrine’s biblical and systematic viability. I began my inquiry into what the descent might mean if we recovered it as Protestant evangelicals in a paper at the 2015 Los Angeles Theology Conference, and my appreciation for and desire to recover the doctrine for evangelicals has grown since then. I hope in this book to show the biblical and historical warrant for the descent so that, in turn, we can see how vital this doctrine is for the confession and ministry of the church.
A Collect for Holy Saturday
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of thy dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.4
a. A contemporary example of this kind of reflection on the inevitability of death, namely the refrain, “We’re all gonna die,” echoes throughout Sufjan Stevens’s “Fourth of July,” a song in the middle of his elegiac album, Carrie and Lowell. Stevens, “Fourth of July,” track 6 on Carrie and Lowell, Asthmatic Kitty, 2015. See also Langston Hughes’s poem, “Drum,” in Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (New York: Vintage Classics, 1959), 87.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In writing this book I owe a debt of gratitude to many, the first of whom is my wife. I thank God for Alicia, particularly for her patience with me on this project. Many times, academics’ spouses assume that the toil of research and writing is over after the dissertation is done, but Alicia has not only been patient with this post-dissertation book but also persistent in encouraging me to do what I love—to read, write about, and teach God’s Word to his people. I also owe thanks to my children, who remind me each day how beautiful life is and how God has blessed me.
With respect to the arguments that follow, I am grateful for the almost constant dialogue with Luke Stamps. Luke challenges me, points me to better resources, and is always willing to listen. I would not have been able to conceive of this book, much less write it, without Luke. I am also grateful to Craig Bartholomew, Heath Thomas, and Chris Morgan, each of whom is a mentor in my pursuit of an academic vocation and ministry. Particularly on this project, Craig was instrumental in helping me to conceive of and pitch the book. I also want to thank all those who read a draft of the entirety or select chapters of this book: Alan Bandy, Patrick Schreiner, Fred Sanders, Brandon Smith, Luke Stamps, and Heath Thomas. This is a much better book because of their help. In that regard, I am grateful to my student workers at OBU, Andrew Tucker and Chandler Warren, both of whom assisted in finding sources. Finally, I owe many thanks to the editors at IVP Academic, especially David McNutt. They, too, have made this an exponentially better book through their careful review of the manuscript. Of course, whatever deficiencies remain are exclusively my responsibility.
ABBREVIATIONS
PRIMARY SOURCES
Antichr.
De Antrichristo
Apoll.
On the Incarnation Against Apollinaris
Ascen. Isa.
Ascension of Isaiah
C. Ar.
Orations Against the Arians
Cels.
Against Celsus
Comm. Jo.
Commentary on John
Comm. Matt.
Commentary on Matthew
Dial.
Dialogue with Trypho
1 En.
1 Enoch
2 En.
2 Enoch
Boniface, Ep.
Boniface, Epistle
Gregory, Ep.
Gregory the Great, Epistle
Ep. Epict.
Letter to Epictetus
Epid.
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
Exc.
Excerpts from Theodotus
Fr. Luc.
Fragmenta in Lucam
Gos. Bart.
Gospel of Bartholomew
Augustine, Haer.
On Heresies
Irenaeus, Haer.
Against Heresies
Herm. Sim.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude
Hom. 1 Reg.
Homilies on 1 Kings
Hom. Exod.
Homilies on Exodus
Hom. Lev.
Homilies on Leviticus
Ign. Eph.
Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians
Ign. Magn.
Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians
Ign. Trall.
Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians
Odes Sol.
Odes of Solomon
Pol. Phil.
Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians
Pr Man
Prayer of Manasseh
Spir. Sanct.
De Spiritu Sancto
Strom.
Miscellanies
T. Dan
Testament of Dan
Teach. Silv.
Teachings of Silvanus
Tg. Psalms
Targum to the Psalms
Trin.
De Trinitate
Wisd Sol
Wisdom of Solomon
MODERN TRANSLATIONS AND SECONDARY SOURCES
AB
Anchor Bible
ACCS
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
AGJU
Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums
ANF
Ante-Nicene Fathers
BCOTWP
Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms
BDAG
Danker, Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature
BECNT
Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
Bib
Biblia
CBQ
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CCSA
Corpus Christianorum: Series Apocryphorum
CCSG
Corpus Christianorum: Series Graeca
CCSL
Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina
CHRC
Church History and Religious Culture
CTR
Criswell Theological Review
EvQ
Evangelical Quarterly
ExpTim
Expository Times
HBM
Hebrew Bible Monographs
IBC
Interpretation: A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
ICC
International Critical Commentary
IJST
International Journal of Systematic Theology
IPM
Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia
IVPNTC
IVP New Testament Commentary
JETS
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JHS
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures
JRT
Journal of Reformed Theology
JSNTSup
Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement
JSOT
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
LNTS
Library of New Testament Studies
ModTheoR
Modern Theology
NAC
New American Commentary
NICGT
New International Commentary on the Greek Text
NICNT
New International Commentary on the New Testament
NICOT
New International Commentary on the Old Testament
NKZ
Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift
NovTSup
Novum Testamentum Supplement
NPNF1
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1
NPNF2
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2
NSBT
New Studies in Biblical Theology
PG
Patrologia Graeca
PNTC
Pillar New Testament Commentary
PO
Patrologia Orientalis
RevExp
Review and Expositor
RFP
Reformed Faith & Practice
RRR
Reformation and Renaissance Review
RTR
The Reformed Theological Review
SBET
Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology
SBJT
Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
SBL
Society of Biblical Literature
SBT
Studies in Biblical Theology
SC
Sources Chrétiennes
SJT
Scottish Journal of Theology
SNTS
Society for New Testament Studies Monographs
STR
Southeastern Theological Review
TDNT
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
TrinJ
Trinity Journal
TOTC
Tyndale Old Testament Commentary
TS
Theological Studies
VCSup
Vigiliae Christianae Supplement
WBC
Word Biblical Commentary
WTJ
Westminster Theological Journal
ZKT
Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie
ZNW
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
“I BELIEVE”
Evangelicalism, Creedal Authority, and the Descent
The descent clause of the Apostles’ and Athanasian creeds—“he descended into hell”—has come under fire over the last two decades, primarily from within American evangelicalism. By “evangelical” and “evangelicalism” I do not mean a particular political voting bloc in the United States but rather the Christian movement that (1) began in the late eighteenth century, (2) is most concentrated in North America, and (3) is characterized by David Bebbington’s quadrilateral of commitment to biblical authority (“Biblicism”), a focus on the cross as the center of Christ’s work (“crucicentrism”), the need for personal conversion (“conversionism”), and the importance of sharing one’s faith in evangelism and engagement with the public square (“activism”).1 It is out of this tradition primarily that I write. Although this group’s boundaries are fuzzy, it is from within this movement that much of the doubt regarding the clause “he descended into hell” has come. One point requiring absolute clarity is that “descended into hell” did not mean, until Calvin, “descend into the place of torment.” The creedal Latin varies between ad inferna (“descended into hell”) and ad inferos (“descended to the dead [ones]), but these are synonyms until the Reformation. While ad inferna is certainly much more widely attested, there are still variants with ad inferos in the Apostles’ Creed’s development.2 And, given the later clarification of the terms in ecclesiastical Latin, the content of the original phrase is more accurately rendered by ad inferos than by ad inferna.3 In any case, while this recent debate about the clause may seem to have come from left field, the clause has been under scrutiny since the Reformation.4 Most critics of the phrase fall into one of two camps: either the clause is redundant with “he was buried” (since it is simply stating that Jesus died) or the clause is teaching something unbiblical if it is referring to any of the variations of the “Harrowing of Hell” doctrine. In doing so, some have called for an alteration of the creeds by excising the phrase,5 while others have called for an alteration of the creeds via an alteration of the phrase itself.6 What does this willingness of evangelicals (as well as Protestants since the Reformation) to call into question the biblical warrant for the phrase and thus to call for its creedal excision, say about evangelicals’ view of creedal authority? More importantly, what should an evangelical view of authority be?
DERIVATIVE CREEDAL AUTHORITY
Evangelicals, in my experience, have a strange relationship with both the three ecumenical creeds—Nicene, Apostles’, and Athanasian—and with a particular affirmation of the latter two: that Jesus “descended to the dead.” Regarding creedal authority, evangelicals seem to understand intuitively the importance of creedal affirmations. Evangelicals want to defend the doctrine of the Trinity, the direction of the Father in creation, the necessity of the Son’s work for salvation, the activity of the Spirit in the church, and the hope of Christ’s return. And yet evangelicals are also Protestants and so want to recognize the supreme authority of Holy Scripture over tradition in matters of faith and practice. When it comes to the creeds, then, evangelicals sense their importance and their truthfulness but are also reluctant to call them “authoritative.”7
Of course, there are different kinds of evangelicals, some who value tradition more than others. Evangelical Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists, in various ways and to various degrees, affirm the three ecumenical creeds. And yet within evangelicalism, these denominations are only a portion of the larger group. Many evangelicals are free church, baptistic, and nondenominational. Further, within all of these groups, free church or not, “traditional” or not, the modern rejection of tradition and the postmodern tendency toward communal authority rather than historic authority have led evangelicals to two disparate means of rejecting creedal authority. On the one hand, many evangelicals distort sola Scriptura into solo or nuda Scriptura. As Timothy George puts it,
Bible-church Christians, restorationists, and some Baptists, among others, have elevated this expression [“No creed but the Bible”] to a fundamental article of the faith. ‘We have no creed but the Bible,’ they say—thus making a creed out of their commitment to creedless Christianity!8
This distortion of confessionalism,9 combined with modernism’s suspicion of tradition, leads many evangelicals simply to reject creedal statements outright. For instance, there are a number of philosophical and systematic theologians who have called into question the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son,10 a key affirmation of the Nicene Creed. The descent doctrine has also come under fire in the twentieth century.11
The rationale given in such instances is that these creedal statements are unbiblical, or at least not explicitly taught in Scripture, and therefore not required as matters of faith. Often the rejection of particular creedal statements as unbiblical is based on exegesis of particular passages supposed to be lynchpins of those doctrines. So Wayne Grudem has based his doubt of eternal generation on his own exegesis of Proverbs 8:22-31,12 while his rejection of the descent doctrine arises out of his exegesis of 1 Peter 3:18-22.13 Methodologically, this approach is many times based on at least three assumptions: (1) that in the early church, some doctrines were based on philosophical rather than biblical commitments; (2) that the modern tools of historical-grammatical exegesis, used on one or a few particular texts, are sufficient in order to arrive at doctrinal conclusions; and (3) that we can set aside our presuppositions in order to achieve the kind of exegetical clarity needed to evaluate earlier creeds and confessions and, perhaps, reject them in favor of new affirmations of our own making. In other words, this approach is thoroughly modern.14 The end result of this kind of approach is to excise certain statements from the creeds. So, for instance, many evangelical churches simply leave out the Apostles’ Creed’s affirmation concerning Christ’s descent to the dead (if they recite a creed at all).15
Postmodern approaches to authority—namely, their communal emphasis—only exacerbate this issue. On the one hand, a postmodern approach may lead to a “what it means to us” attitude, where creedal statements are authoritative in the way that a local church or denomination affirms them. In turn, this may or may not be connected to how they have been understood throughout Christian history. So creedal affirmations mean what a particular community says they mean, instead of having their meaning rooted in the biblical witness and the derivative tradition. On the other hand, a postmodern approach to creedal authority could only exacerbate the tendency to excise certain statements, since particular communities are free to affirm what they want. As Kevin Vanhoozer argues,
In a postmodern climate, it is more difficult than ever to pretend that one’s preferred formulation of Christian faith is immune to cultural conditioning. This awareness contributes, at least indirectly, to an ethos of congregational consumerism and ultimately to a devaluation of doctrine.16
Again, for the descent doctrine, this has certain implications. Some have chosen to reject it completely, while others have made it mean something it never did in Christian history.
Interestingly, the last two decades have brought a renewed appreciation of “tradition” among postmodern approaches to church life, particularly in the Emergent Church movement and their emphasis on an “ancient/future faith.”17 This re-appropriation of the Christian tradition, though, is sometimes used as a rationale for a minimal, rather than a maximal, view of Christian doctrine. The phrase “Nicaea is enough” is typical in this model, and its connotation is that as long as someone affirms the Nicene Creed then they may be all over the map in other areas of Christian doctrine without abandoning the faith. Further, even affirmations of Nicaea are subject to individual and communal interpretations.18 This is not a retrieval of the Christian tradition as much as it is an attempt to conceive of the Christian doctrinal tent as covering as much ground as possible.
Neither of these options captures the spirit of an evangelical view of tradition’s derivative authority. While both approaches have positive contributions to make—modernism’s emphasis on what the text says rather than a blind appropriation of all tradition,19 and postmodernism’s recognition of presuppositions, for instance20—neither provides the path for an evangelical understanding of the Christian tradition. What is needed is a more robust grasp on how tradition and the Bible relate to one another under the rubric of sola Scriptura.21
Others have recently attempted to articulate this relationship between Scripture and classic Christian doctrine. Kevin Vanhoozer, for instance, categorizes doctrine as scriptural performance, or the outworking of Scripture’s teachings in contemporary contexts.22 In this view, doctrine and tradition are derivative of Scripture but nevertheless essential to the Christian life. Scripture is not static or stale, but living and active through its divine author, the Holy Spirit. Thus reading Scripture demands a response, and tradition and doctrine are rational and linguistic responses to the Bible’s content. In Vanhoozer’s terms, the Spirit is the playwright, the Bible is his script, and tradition and doctrine are the faithful performances of that script. In this model, then, Scripture is ultimately authoritative via its divine inspiration, and doctrine and tradition are derivatively authoritative as long as they are worked out—performed—in according with the norma normans non normata of Scripture.23 In this derivative and performative role, doctrine is both subject to Scripture and, insofar as it is faithful to Scripture, a guide for reading Scripture. When we say that doctrine or tradition is derivatively authoritative, then, we mean that it aids in our grasp of Scripture’s content insofar as it is faithful to Scripture’s content.24 In Vanhoozer’s terms, it is a ministerial, not ultimate, authority. Its purpose is to minister the hermeneutical and doctrinal truth to us, not to serve as the arbiter or giver of truth.25 Those latter categories belong to God alone, who communicates truth to us in the person of God the Son and the Scriptures that testify to him through the inspiration of God the Spirit.26
DERIVATIVE AUTHORITY AND THE DESCENT
Of course, the question at hand is whether or not the creeds, particularly the Apostles’ and Athanasian, have accurately ministered biblical teaching on what happened to Jesus between his death and resurrection. Did Jesus in fact “descend into hell [to the dead]”? Is this clause saying something that reflects biblical teaching? Or is it—on the one hand and in the case of the Apostles’ Creed—a needless repetition of the burial clause or—on the other hand—a mistaken notion about harrowing or torment that should be deleted? Wayne Grudem and the so-called “neo-deletionists”27 argue that the answer to both of these latter questions is “yes” and that, therefore, the phrase should be excised.
But it is at exactly this point that the derivative authority of the creeds should give us pause. If the creeds have stood the test of time, and if, in standing that test, their phrases have been proven, generation upon generation, to be an accurate summary of biblical content, those phrases that give us most trouble today should be seen not as hurdles to be jumped or chaff to be separated from the wheat but as challenges to our (post)modern imaginations. Acknowledging the derivative authority of the creeds means that, on the one hand, we confess them precisely because they are accurate summaries of Scripture. On the other hand, it also means that derivative creedal authority is a communal and ecclesial balance that acts as a check against any of our mistaken, individual interpretations. Understanding creedal authority this way is thus an exercise in seeing how the creeds ask us to return to Scripture rather than depart from it. At minimum, it says to the interpreter who questions a creedal phrase, “search the Scriptures again, and do so with the communion of the saints.”28
SEARCHING THE BIBLICAL FIELDS
When we return to the field of Holy Scripture and search once again for creedal treasure, particularly as it relates to the descent clause, we find biblical warrant to understand “he descended to the dead” as an accurate summary of Christ’s time between his death and resurrection. Of course, we should recognize that “biblical warrant” is more encompassing than just the common expression, “give me a chapter and verse.” That phrase is a narrow, imprecise, and inaccurate view of what it means for a doctrine to be biblical. Rather than simply proof-texting,29 a theological method that seeks to be biblical recognizes that, to use David Yeago’s terms, a properly “biblical” doctrine is one in which the theologian’s conceptual terms render accurate judgments about the patterns of biblical language.30
“Patterns” can be anything from a few explicit verses grouped together (the common means of “doing theology” among evangelicals31), to following intertextual threads,32 to what are properly called “patterns.” While we should not discount forming doctrinal conclusions via exegesis and interpretation of one verse or passage, it may come as a surprise to some to realize that some doctrines simply cannot be formed this way.33 More often, doctrinal formulation requires, at the very least, the interpretation of a few passages together, giving attention to both their literary and canonical contexts. Regarding canonical context, the theologian ought to read and interpret the passage not only in its individual context but also with respect to its context in the entirety of Scripture. This means that the theologian should seek to understand the intertextual resonances of a particular passage,34 as well as its place in the economy, or narrative,35 of Scripture.
Biblical patterns: “Son of Man” as an example. For instance, when we attempt to understand the Son of Man passages in the Gospels, we must understand those that clearly allude to Daniel 7 in relation to that OT passage.36 But intertextual resonances and the canonical context they provide usually consist of a whole host of interconnected allusions. So, with respect to Daniel 7, we also need to dig further into its relationship with Daniel 2, since both chapters share many of the same phrases and serve as the beginning and end of a linguistic inclusio in the book (they start and end the Aramaic section of Daniel).37 And once we have drawn the appropriate textual connections between Daniel 7 and Daniel 2, we must dig even further into the host of allusions Daniel 2 makes to other OT passages and themes, particularly with respect to the temple.38 Thus understanding what “Son of Man” means for the purposes of formulating a Christology is not limited to exegeting those Gospel passages alone, nor is it limited to noting the connection to Daniel 7 and exegeting that passage as well. Rather, understanding “Son of Man” entails understanding an entire intertextual matrix of OT allusions and echoes.
Additionally, the “Son of Man” language requires interpretation in Scripture’s narrative context. This is a key element in the pro-Nicenes’ formulation of what we now call Trinitarian orthodoxy. Rather than “Son” in its various uses, including but not limited to “Son of Man,” indicating some kind of ontological subordination, the narrative of Scripture teaches that God the Son took on human flesh and only in that act within the economy of redemption does he become a servant. Philippians 2:5-11 is crucial in this regard, as it provides biblical support for bifurcating the life of the Son ad intra and ad extra.39 Eternally, he exists in “the form of God,” that is, as the second person of the Godhead; only in the incarnation does he take on “the form of a servant.” Thus when we read titles like “Son of Man” or “Son of God,” it is important that we apply this narratival, or economic, principle in understanding how the Son became obedient in the incarnation.40
Finally, with respect to actual patterns of biblical language, we move from “Son of Man” language to the broader pattern of Father/Son language from which the church fathers derived the doctrine of eternal generation.41 While there are only a few passages that may link Father/Son language with the eternal generation of the Son (e.g., Prov 8:22-31;42 Jn 5:2643), eternal generation arose out of reflection on the divine names. “Father” and “Son” imply a certain relationship, one in which the person of the Father generates, or communicates the divine essence to, the Son. And because the Son is eternal (as is the Father), this relationship does not have a starting or stopping point—thus eternal generation.44 This lynchpin of Nicene orthodoxy was not formulated primarily via exegeting one or a few verses (although that certainly was included in the pro-Nicenes’ theological reflection), but instead was forged through noticing the patterns of language that occur throughout Scripture regarding the names of the first and second persons of the Triune God—Father and Son.
The biblical patterns for the descent. When we ask what biblical warrant exists for the descent, then, we must pay attention not only to the exegesis of particular verses, like 1 Peter 3:18-22 and 4:6,45 but also to the patterns of biblical language related to Christ’s time in the tomb. Examples include inner-biblical allusions between texts describing Christ’s burial and OT descriptions of Sheol, Christ’s own testimony of his time in the tomb as the “sign of Jonah,” and reflections on biblical anthropology and its impact on how we view Christ’s burial for three days (more on each of these and others in chapters two and three). Additionally, the history of biblical interpretation can aid us in our search for an accurate summary of biblical language, and in this respect the early church is replete with reflections on Christ’s burial.46 When we ask for the biblical warrant for the descent, then, it is important to consider how the communion of saints has answered that question, not only in terms of their exegesis of individual passages but also with respect to how they read the Bible as an intertextual, narratival, and canonical whole.
Attending to patterns across various doctrines. Another consideration regarding theological decision-making lies with properly dogmatic questions. That is, sometimes our conclusions about a particular doctrine rests on what impact our articulation of it will have on other doctrinal loci.47 Further, we must ask whether the payoff for affirming a certain doctrine is worth the impact it will have on other, perhaps more important, doctrines. So, for instance, regarding the question of kenotic Christologies and/or monothelitism, how would such articulations of the hypostatic union affect our Trinitarian formulations? If either of them, or both, imply trithelitism for the Trinity, is that modification of classic Trinitiarianism worth it for the sake of affirming, say, monothelitism?
These kinds of questions could be multiplied for a whole host of doctrinal formulations and their impact elsewhere in systematics. The point here is that, when we formulate our understanding of particular doctrines, we must ask what impact our understanding of biblical teaching on a particular subject has on other dogmatic loci. Christian theology is a fabric,48 and when we pull on one thread—the descent, for instance—it impacts other doctrines and the way we formulate them.49 For this reason, it is important that we ask how dismissing or significantly altering a particular doctrine will affect the entirety of Christian theology. And the more important and foundational the doctrine is, the more important it is to be cautious in our attempts to revise or excise that doctrine. So, while the descent may not be a primary question, it is an important one.
Patterns in practical theology. Finally, in asking what is biblical, we must pay attention not only to the dogmatic impact of our formulation but also to its pastoral and contextual implications. That is to say, doctrinal formulation is always performed in a particular sociohistorical context, and therefore it must be conversant with the issues of the day and the impact it will have on them.50 For instance, in the chapter on anthropology, we will explore the mind-body problem, a question endemic not only to Christian theology but, more generally, to philosophy and biology. We therefore must put our theological reflection on the descent in conversation with this pressing modern question. That is not to say that we should put the secular cart before the scriptural and dogmatic horse, allowing philosophy or biology to dictate the terms to Christian theology. Rather, our contemporary context at least means that as we speak about God, we must speak also to and with our world.
The above methodological considerations, then, will guide us as we work through the biblical, historical, and theological rationale for affirming the descent doctrine. Chapters two and three will be crucial in this regard, as they attempt to provide a biblical and historical defense of the descent. And the rest of the book demonstrates the theological and practical implications of this largely overlooked doctrine.
PURPOSE AND STRUCTURE
This book is therefore an attempt to recapture a doctrine neglected in many evangelical circles today—Christ’s descent to the dead—via biblical, historical, dogmatic, and practical reflection. In chapters two and three, we will survey the biblical and historical evidence for the descent clause and provide a working definition of the phrase “he descended to the dead” based on that evidence. These historical and biblical arguments are intertwined, and so I will begin by demonstrating the common biblical arguments for the descent as they are found throughout church history. This will answer the objection about a lack of biblical warrant and also address 1 Peter 3:18-22. Then, in the next chapter, we will map the various ways that Christians have confessed the descent throughout church history, demonstrating particularly in analysis of patristic writings that the Harrowing of Hell concept, which relies on an extrapolated cosmology of hell and holds that Christ emptied the first level of hell (the so-called limbus patrum, or Limbo of the Fathers) of at least virtuous Jews and pagans via the preparatio evangelicum, is not necessary to or found among the earliest or most universally accepted understandings of the confession that Jesus descended to the dead.51 This will bring us to an exploration of the insertion of the phrase into the Apostles’ Creed. After these biblical and historical explorations, we will again and with support define the phrase “he descended to the dead” as the confession that Jesus experienced human death as all humans do—his body buried and his soul departing to the place of the dead—and in so doing, by virtue of his divinity, he defeated death and the grave.52 While this is perhaps where many evangelicals falter, and while this book was originally conceived as simply a biblical-historical defense of the descent, there has been good work done in this area over the last few years, and it would not be appropriate to retread well-covered ground.53 Instead, much of the remainder of the book will consist of a biblical-theological reflection on Christ’s descent and its impact on other dogmatic loci. In chapter four, we will reflect on the descent’s impact on our Trinitarian formulations, especially with respect to the relations of origin and inseparable operations. Chapter five will explore the relationship of the descent to the doctrine of creation, including questions of cosmology, the Promised Land, and the importance of physical burial. Because creation is tied closely to the doctrine of humanity, chapter six will narrow our focus to christological anthropology and ask how the descent impacts our understanding of the unity of the human person, the intermediate state, and the nature of the body-soul relation.
Chapters seven and eight ask how the descent impacts soteriology and ecclesiology. For the former, the descent has perennial issues regarding what exactly happens in it, as well as who it affects. Here, then, we will explore the nature of paradise, Christ’s work on Holy Saturday, and the relationship between penal substitution and Christus victor in light of the descent. Regarding ecclesiology, or soteriology applied, we will explore the Sabbatarian nature of the descent, its relationship to baptism, and its relation to the doctrine of the communion of the saints. To end our biblical-theological reflection, the descent’s relationship with eschatology will be examined in chapter nine, with particular focus on the intermediate state, the resurrection of the dead, and the timing of the millennium. A final chapter will explore the practical implications of our understanding of the descent, including for hermeneutics, liturgy, creedal recitation, pastoral care, and mission.
A few caveats are necessary before we begin our exploration of the descent. First, the descent is not a major note in Scripture, nor is it ever portrayed narratively. It happens “off-stage,” so to speak.54 Of course, the actual resurrection also occurs “off-stage,” but then the resurrected Jesus strides into the scene as the resurrected Lord. We cannot say the same thing about the descent. But this does not mean it is not taught in Scripture (it is), that it is not important in church history (it is, especially in the patristic and medieval periods), or that it is not creedal (it is).55 While we should keep in mind that the descent is not as explicit as other doctrines, we will argue that it remains important for Christians today because it is biblically taught and creedally confessed.
Second, it is important to remember that, throughout these individual chapters, our aim is not to provide an exhaustive treatment of either the descent or its relation to the topics under consideration, but rather to demonstrate how this particular doctrine fits into and impinges upon other Christian beliefs, and particularly how so for evangelicals.56 As the reader will see in the footnotes and the main text of some of the chapters, there has been sustained reflection on the descent in other traditions, particularly Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. I do not wish to suggest or to give the impression that this book is the only recent reflection on this topic or that it covers the descent exhaustively. There is still work to be done with respect to an updated and extensive study of the history of the doctrine, especially during the medieval period; an exploration of the descent’s place in Christian liturgies, both historically and prescriptively for today; and more extensive and focused studies on the many of the topics explored in this book (e.g., the descent and the extra Calvinisticum, or the descent and the millennium).
I also recognize that, while I consider this a retrieval project, not all Christians will agree with all of my conclusions. Again, my goal is not to provide either a definitive or an exhaustive treatment of the descent but to recover its confession and importance, and particularly for evangelicals. This qualification is especially important in the second half of the book, beginning in chapter four. There are a host of issues I touch on in chapters four and following, such as universalism, purgatory, the extent of the atonement, the millennium, and the like, that have a wide variety of understandings both within evangelicalism and outside of it. I do not pretend to have a last word on any of those issues, although I have done my best to speak clearly to them from consideration of the descent and, most importantly, from the teaching of Scripture. Readers should not feel as though they have to follow me on our conclusions about any of those issues to see the larger point of the book, which is that the descent is an important piece in the fabric of Christian theology and impinges upon our understanding of various other dogmatic issues.
Thus my goal in this biblical-theological exploration is simple: to recover the doctrine of the descent for evangelicals today. I hope that this book serves as a motivation for further reflection on the descent, not as some kind of final word either in scope or in argument. It is therefore my desire that the following will assist the reader in seeing the biblical rationale for the descent, its importance in relation to the other loci of Christian theology, and its practical implications for Christians today. The descent is, in my opinion, a beautiful doctrine that not only fits into the fabric of Christian theology but is also integral to that fabric. While some may believe we can simply discard the descent, it is my conviction that this doctrine, held ubiquitously for the first 1500 years of the church’s life, is an integral one for the health of Christian theology and practice.
“HE DESCENDED TO THE DEAD”
A Biblical Defense of the Descent
The most common criticism of the descent clause is that it is unbiblical. And while there are other criticisms of the doctrine, to identify a doctrine as “unbiblical” among evangelicals is, if substantiated, a death knell for a particular belief. Charges that the descent doctrine lacks biblical support usually take one of two forms,1 although these are not mutually exclusive. Some theologians posit that the descent rests on 1 Peter 3:18-22, a passage that, in their opinion, upon careful exegesis, does not yield support for the descent.2 Another argument is that the descent teaches that Jesus entered (and in some articulations, was tormented in) and then emptied hell, a teaching not found in Scripture.3 A defense of the descent, then, must deal with these two charges.4
But these attempts to discredit the doctrine can be answered on two levels, both of which are important in defending the descent. First, one must ask if these objections arise from an accurate reading of the church’s confession about the descent’s meaning. If these objections to the descent arise from a faulty understanding of how it has been believed throughout church history—if they arise from some doctrinal opponent of our own making—then it is not the descent that is unbiblical but a recently constructed straw man. And indeed, this is what we find, at least in part, when we survey church history in light of both of these objections. 1 Peter 3:18-22 is certainly not the only biblical passage or exegetical argument used to support the descent, nor is it in many cases the crux of a theologian’s argument for the doctrine.5 Second, with respect to the objection that the descent means Jesus entered into the place of torment and released those in it, we need to make clear that this concept is not necessary, universal, nor earliest (at least with respect to entering the place of torment) in confessions about the descent.6
This chapter explores the evidence that these modern objections are unfounded given a close reading of Scripture. To put it positively, the descensus is a thoroughly biblical doctrine, which teaches that Jesus experienced human death as all humans do—his body was buried,7 and his soul departed to the place of the dead8—and, in so doing, by virtue of his divinity, he defeated death and the grave. This core confession is biblically supported and historically warranted, given the way the church has confessed that Jesus “descended to the dead” for the last two millennia. These scriptural arguments form the foundation for the chapters that follow, which evaluate the history of the doctrine and explore both the doctrine itself and its connections to the whole of Christian theology and practice.
THE DESCENT’S BIBLICAL CRUX
Contrary to some modern detractors, 1 Peter 3:18-22 is not the only passage upon which the doctrine of the descent is based.9 In fact, the biblical support for the descent, when surveyed throughout church history, consists of a tapestry made of inner-biblical allusions, Jesus’ own and the apostles’ testimony to the work of redemption, and patterns of biblical language. Additionally, the Bible’s historical background, including ancient Near Eastern (ANE) concepts of death, Second Temple Judaism, and Greco-Roman thought, points to at least the core understanding of the descent outlined above. In what follows, we will argue that a variety of NT texts teach the descent, and also that 1 Peter 3:18-22 can be plausibly read as referring to the descent. Again, though, the doctrine does not stand or fall on any single one of these texts, including 1 Peter 3.
BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS REGARDING THE PLACE OF THE DEAD
Before we turn to specific NT texts that teach the descent, it is important to understand their context in ANE, Greco-Roman, and OT thought about death and the afterlife.
The afterlife according the Old Testament. Philip S. Johnston in his Shades of Sheol exemplifies a common contemporary portrayal of ancient Jewish beliefs about the afterlife as expressed in the Old Testament.10 Johnston argues that the Old Testament does not explicitly teach a conscious intermediate state, but instead “death and its aftermath were of little concern.”11 Sheol is “predominately associated with the wicked in the Hebrew Bible” and “there is no clearly articulated alternative to Sheol, no other destiny whose location is named, no other fate whose situation is described, however briefly. So the majority of Israelites may well have envisaged no alternative.”12 This argument that the Old Testament is relatively uninterested in the afterlife due to its focus on life in the Promised Land, and therefore also gives scant attention to the intermediate state (if any at all), is common in biblical studies today.13 But at least two recent monographs have demonstrated that this scholarly edifice should at least be reexamined, if not torn down.14
First, Richard Steiner has argued that there is evidence that nephesh does not only mean “life” (a common piece of data used to argue for the above view about the Old Testament and the afterlife) but can in some instances legitimately refer to “soul” as distinct from a person’s body. He also argues that there are other meanings to Sheol besides the ones Johnston and others marshal as evidence for their view of the OT conception of death and the afterlife (or lack thereof).15
Second, Christopher B. Hays’s recent book A Covenant with Death argues that ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Ugaritic cultures had conceptions of death and the afterlife that included conscious existence, interaction with the living, and certain levels of comfort or blessedness that could be achieved. He also demonstrates that these cultures had various means of interacting with and influencing ancient Israel (specifically eighth-century Israel), and that there are at least some texts in the Old Testament that imply that kind of cultural context. While Hays is careful not to press the evidence too far, his book ably demonstrates that the texts in the Old Testament that speak about the dead and the afterlife in a negative fashion may not be carte blanche statements about those elements but rather, polemical reactions to the surrounding cultures’ misconceptions about or misapplications of the truths about what happens to a person at death. Further, in that kind of cultural climate, texts like Isaiah 14 stand out as more in line with cultural expectations than out of step with them.16 In addition to these two monographs, we could also point to more positive statements, like Abraham and Jacob being “gathered to their fathers,” the latter before his bodily burial (i.e., the two are not equivalent), as evidence for some kind of assumed conscious intermediate state.17 It should not be assumed, then, that the Old Testament does not teach a conscious afterlife or that the afterlife could not be anything other than a shadowy, miserable existence.18
Second Temple Judaism and the place of the dead. Regarding Greco-Roman understandings of the afterlife, the New Testament differs significantly at points19 but also shares some crucial elements in common, namely, viewing the world with three tiers—the lowest being the place of the dead—and portraying salvific descents to the place of the dead.20 Of course, even those common elements differ with both Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament. On the other hand, the New Testament’s conception of the place of the dead is not all that different from Second Temple Judaism. The concept of the afterlife in Jewish thought progressed from simply reflecting on the commonality of death and the fact that the dead remain dead to expressing explicit hope in a general resurrection of Israel (e.g., Ezek 36–37)21 that included a resurrection of individual bodies (Dan 12:1-2).22 This kind of progression continued in the Second Temple literature, where we see the dead compartmentalized, or separated, between the righteous and unrighteous and experiencing a foretaste of their eternal fate, whether punishment or reward. These ideas are found mostly in apocalyptic literature, although there are some nonapocalyptic works that discuss these issues. The subgenre that developed out of Jewish reflection on the afterlife is the “Tours of Hell,” and in texts that contain a tour we see that these Second Temple Jewish works affirmed an intermediate state, compartmentalization of the righteous and unrighteous, proleptic punishments and rewards, and a hope for the general resurrection of the dead.23
The compartments are particularly important for our purposes, since they will impact how we understand Jesus’ descent. Bass lists three: paradise, or Abraham’s bosom;24 the abyss, or Tartarus;25 and Gehenna, or the lake of fire.26 The former is the place where righteous saints dwell, both in the intermediate state (Abraham’s bosom, “paradise” in Lk 23:4327 and 2 Cor 12:3) and in the new heavens and new earth (Rev 2:7), while the latter is used to refer to the place where the unrighteous experience final judgment (Dan 7:9-10; Mt 25:41; Rev 20:10, 13-15; 21:8). The middle term can be used as a reference to the general realm of the dead (“abyss,” see Rom 10:7) or for the prison that holds fallen angels. This latter use, aside from Romans 10:7, is its exclusive usage in the New Testament (Lk 8:31; Rev 9:1, 2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3). And, according to Bass, “The Abyss is also predominately understood as the dwelling place of fallen angels (demons) in the underworld throughout the intertestamental literature.”28 Here, these demons await final judgment, in which they will be thrown into the third compartment, the lake of fire (Rev 20:13-15).
This provides background for NT texts like Luke 16:19-31, which, when seen against the above Second Temple Jewish backdrop,29 appears to be a clear NT case of a “tour of heaven and hell.”30 It also should affect how we understand 1 Peter 3:19 and its reference to “spirits in prison.”31 In other words, when the New Testament speaks about “the dead,” it has a specific background, one that affirms “the [place of the] dead” as a location containing the disembodied souls of both the righteous and unrighteous (albeit in separate compartments).32 This lends credence to the idea that when the NT writers and later the creeds speak about Christ’s resurrection “from the dead,” they mean not only from the state of being dead but from the place of the dead and from among the dead ones (disembodied souls).
Particularly important in this regard is 1 Corinthians 15. This chapter, in which Paul explicates the importance of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, contains many references to “the dead.” Especially pertinent to our discussion are verses 20 and 27. In 1 Corinthians 15:20, Paul speaks of Christ being raised “from the dead” (ἐκνεκρῶν), a phrase that typically indicates the location of the place of the dead. Further, Paul goes on to speak about Christ’s subjection of all rulers and authorities through his death and resurrection, a subjection that appears both to have already happened (1 Cor 15:27) and to happen consummately at his return (1 Cor 15:24-28). Here Paul appears to be saying that through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (1 Cor 15:3-5), he has put death under his feet. We see this again in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57, where death is defeated because of the work of Christ. This will be important later when we ask what happened at the descent, but for now it is important to note that Christ’s victory is accomplished through his death, burial, and resurrection, a resurrection that brings Christ up from the place of the dead (ἐκνεκρῶν).
While the cosmography assumed by the New Testament and the descent’s relation to it will be discussed in detail in chapter five, here we can summarize the conceptual background for the NT texts related to Christ’s descent in the following way. First, Sheol in the Old Testament and Hades in the LXX and in Greco-Roman thought can be used to refer to both a general place for all the dead as well as a place of torment or consignment for the unrighteous. Second, this place was normally located under the earth, although it could also be referred to as “beyond the sea” or, in the case of the righteous dead, in the “third heaven.” Third, over time, and especially during Second Temple Judaism, this general place of the dead was increasingly discussed in terms of its compartments, namely one for the righteous and another for the unrighteous. The former is often referred to as “paradise” and “Abraham’s bosom” in Second Temple literature, while the latter is referred to using terms like “Hades” and “Gehenna.” Tartarus, the prison for evil spirits, was also generally conceptualized as a lower portion of the unrighteous compartment of the dead.
Third, these compartments, while separated, are nevertheless in the same place, the place of the dead, and thus there can be communication between them (as illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Lk 16:19-31). Finally, these compartments in the New Testament and in Second Temple Judaism are related to faith in YHWH, as the righteous compartment is filled with those who await the vindication by the Messiah on the last day and the unrighteous compartment, those who await final judgment and eternal torment. These compartments are thus proleptic judgments on their inhabitants.33
Figure 2.1. Hebrew view of the universe
When the New Testament talks about Jesus’ descent and all that is accomplished in it, we need to keep this conceptual background in mind. It is to those particular NT texts that we now turn. In sum, these texts teach that when Christ died, he experienced death as all humans do: his body was buried, and his human soul went (“descended”) to the place of the dead. He descended to the righteous compartment of the dead (“paradise,” Lk 23:43), but he could also communicate with all the dead. In this way, he proclaims his victory to those “under the earth” (Phil 2:10).
Figure 2.2. The Place of the Dead (Hades, Sheol)
ACTS 2:25-28 AND PSALM 16:8-11
For proponents of the descent, perhaps the most popular text to which they make an appeal is Acts 2:25-28 and its quotation of Psalm 16:8-11.34 For the sake of context, Acts 2:22-28 reads:
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,
“I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
