That the sufferings of Christ ceased the moment He expired on the cross, is plain from John xix. 30, where it is recorded, " When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said. It is finished (Te-eAea-rai) : and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." This is univer- sally admitted. As, liowever, such passages as Psalms xviii. 5, and cxvi. 3, "The sorrows of death" (Hebrew Sheol in Psalm xviii. 5), were understood to mean extreme suffering, many of the Re- formed understood the descensus ad inferos to refer to the extreme agony of our Lord in the garden and upon the cross, under the hiding of his Father's face. But, in the first place, the literal tneaning of those passages is, " The bands (not the sorrows) of Sheol, or (as it is in Psalms cxvi. 3), of death." The allusion in both cases is the familiar one to a net. The idea is that the Psalm- ist felt himself so entangled that death appeared inevitable. This is sometliing very different from what is meant by " descending into Hell or Sheol." And in the second place, the position which the clause in question holds in the creed forbids this interpretation. It follows the clause referring to the death and burial of Christ. It is the natural exegesis of the words immediately preceding it. " He was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into Sheol," t. e., he passed into the invisible state. But it would be utterly incongruous to say, " He was dead, buried, and suffered extreme ao"ony," when it is admitted that his sufferings ended upon the cross.
In the larger Westminster Catechism,^ it is said, " Christ's hu- miliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continu- inor in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words. He descended into hell.''' That this is the correct view of Christ's descensus ad inferos may be argued, —
1. From the original and proper meaning of the Greek word
SSt;?, and the corresponding English word hell. Both mean the
unseen world. The one signifies what is unseen, the other what is
covered and thus hidden from view. Both are used as the render-
1 Answer to Qwation 50.
§5.] fflS DEATH AND BURIAL. 617
iiig for tlie Hebrew word bisti? (probably from bst?) to ask, or de- mand}, the state or place of the dead ; the orcus rapaxoi the Lat- ins. All the dead, the righteous and the wicked, alike go into the invisible world, or, in this sense, "descend into hell." Hence to be buried, to go down to the grave, to descend into hell, are in Scrip- tural language equivalent forms of expression. In Genesis xxxvii. 35, Jacob says n^is:?' inS, which the Septuagint renders Kara^r/- o-o/xat ct? aSou ; the Vulgate, Descendavi hi infernuni ; the English, "I will go down into the grave." Thus also in Psalm xxx. 4, David says, '^W^'l biSK'-'ja ri^b??rj, which the Septuagint renders, di/jjyayes e't aSou ry]v ^vx^v fjiov ; the Vulgate, " Eduxisti ab iuferno animam meam ; " and so Luther, " Du hast meiiie Seele aus der HoUe gefiihret ; " while the English version is, " Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave," which is explained in the following clause, " Thou hast kejit me alive, that I should not go down to the pit." In Scriptural language, therefore, to descend into Hades or Hell, means nothing more than to descend to the grave, to pass fi'om the visible into the invisible world, as happens to all men when they die and are buried.
2. This view is confirmed by the fact that these words were not in the creed originally. They were introduced in the fourth century, and then not as a separate or distinct article, but as merely exj)laiiatory. " He was dead and buried," i. e., he descended into hell. That the two clauses were at first considered equivalent is obvious, because some copies of the creed had the one form, some the other, and some both, though all were intended to say the same thing.
3. The passages of Scripture which are adduced to prove that Christ descended into hell in a sense peculiar to Himself, do not teach that doctrine. In Psalm xvi. 10, "Thou wilt not leave ray soul in hell ; neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see cor- ruption," merely expresses the confidence of the speaker that God would not leave him under the power of death. ' Thou wilt npt delivei me to the power of Sheol, nor suffer me to see corruption.' This is the precise sense ascribed to the passage by St. Peter in Acts ii. 27-31, and by St. Paul in Acts xiii.-34, 35. In both case§ the P>alm is quoted to prove the resurrection of Christ. David was left in the state of the dead ; his body did see corruption. Christ was delivered from the grave before corruption liad time to affect his sacred person. 3fy soul Ott^??), may be taken here, as so often elsewhere, for the pers(mal pronoun, as in the passage quoted above. Psalm xxx. 4 : " Thou hast brought up my soul (nae)
ni8 PART m. ch. xn. — humiliation of christ.
from the grave." See Psalm iii. 2, " Many there be which say of my soul (me), there is no help for him in God." Psalm vii. 3, " Lest he tear my soul (me) like a lion." Psalm xi. 1, " How say ye to my soul (to me) Flee as a bird to your mountain." Psalm XXXV. 7, "A pit which without cause they have digged for my soul (for me)." But even if the words " my soul " be taken in their strict sense, the meaning is still the same. The souls of men at death pass into the invisible world, they are hidden from the view and companionship of men. This condition was to con- tinue in the case of Christ only for a few days. He was to be recalled to life. His soul was to be reunited to his body, as it was before.
A second passage relied upon in this matter is Ephesians iv. 9, " Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth ? " By " the lower parts of the earth " many understand the parts lower than the earth ; the lower, or infernal regions. But in the first place, this is altogether an unnecessary interpretation. The words may naturally mean here, as elsewhere, the lower parts, namely, the earth ; the geni- tive T^s yfys being the genitive of opposition. See Isaiah xliv. 23, "Sing, O ye heavens ; .... shout, ye lower parts the earth." In the second place, the context neither here nor in Psalm Ixviii. whence the passage is taken, or on which the Apostle is comment- ing, suggests any other contrast than that between heaven and earth. ' He that ascended to heaven, is he who first descended to the earth.' In the third place, the Apostle's object does not render either necessary or probable any reference to what hap- pened after the death of Christ. He simply says that the Psalm (Ixviii.) which speaks of the triumph of its subject must be under- stood of the Messiah because it speaks of an ascension to heaven, which im|)lies a previous descent to the earth.
Much less can 1 Timothy iii. 16, where it said of God as man- ifest in the flesh that He was " seen of angels," be understood of Christ appearing in the undei'-world in the presence of Satan and his angels. The worddyye'Aot, angels, without qualification, is never used of fallen angels. The Apostle refers to the evidence afforded of the divinity of Christ; He was justified by the Spirit, seen and recognized by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed upon in the world, and received up into glory. All classes of beings had been the witnesses of the fact that God was manifested in the flesh.
Much the most difficult and important passage bearing on this question is 1 Peter iii. 18, 19, " Being put to death in the flesh,