Apostles’ Creed (part 4)

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Suffered under Pontius Pilate; // Was crucified, died and was buried. // He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead.

    • Suffered— “Still, it’s not quite true that the creed just ignores everything that happens between Jesus’ birth and death. In fact, already among the earliest Christians it had become customary to sum up Jesus’ whole life under one word: ‘suffering.’ (Luke 24:26). Luke records that Paul summed up Jesus’ life in the same way: ‘It was necessary for the Messiah to suffer’ (Acts 17:3). By the time of the later New Testament writings, the word ‘suffering’ has become a convenient formula for referring to the whole story of Jesus’ life and death: ‘he suffered’ (Heb 2:18).”[1]
      • And 1 Pet 4:1. And in our baptism, we share in his sufferings, Rom 8:17.
      • And our identification with Jesus’ suffering is connected to Jesus: death, descended, resurrected, and ascended…
  • “From a different angle, the insistence that Christ—and in him, God—suffered is important because it tells us that God is not remote from or unacquainted with the sorts of suffering, often dreadful suffering, that [we] experience in life. The scale of suffering in God’s world is one of the biggest problems for believers and unbelievers alike when it comes to making sense of the world and of the claim that God is its creator and sustainer. … [God experiences] ‘godforsaken’ in order to sustain us through it and to break its hold over us. This is a God who is never closer to us, that is to say, than he is in the midst of our seeming ‘godforsakennes,’ and such suffering has no power to isolate or to distance us from God. He has been there before us, and he goes there with us.”[2]
    • Compare:
      • 22:2–3, 22 “My God, my God, why have You abandoned me—  far from my deliverance, the words of my howling?!  3 My God! I call out by day, and You do not answer— and by night, but there is no rest for me. “22 Deliver me from the lion’s mouth, and from the horns of wild oxen… You have answered me!”
      • “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” John 19:30.
    • The narratival substructure of Paul’s writings is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
      • Jesus’ death was not expected.[3] The crucifixion meant that the Kingdom did not come, and Jesus was not the Messiah.
      • Jesus’ death is connected deeply with our atonement. Jesus died for us. Many images … none alone carry the fullness of meaning or literal explanation. Taken together is the best we can do to get our minds around how God addresses sin. Each of the images has a point of comparison but also limitations.[4]
        • Religious sacrifice at the Temple.
        • Justice-to satisfy a penalty.
        • Winning the cosmic battle between good and evil. Christus Victor.
        • Paying a debt or paying a price for human sin.
        • The redemption price someone pays to free a slave. Liberated from bondage.
        • Born from above or rebirth.
        • New Creation.
    • 1 Peter 2:20–25. It is more than Jesus substituting himself for us, but he set an example “to enable us to suffer and die as we follow in his footsteps. Indeed, we might say that part of what sets him apart from us and makes his suffering and death unique is their capacity, as the suffering and death of God, to be generative of ours as we are united ever more fully to him by the Holy Spirit. As we grow more like him, so we too begin to ‘suffer’ sin in the world and in ourselves … coming to see things as God sees them, to feel things as God feels them, our moral and spiritual lives being reorientated until our familiar bearings no longer grant us any stability or guidance. As the Spirit infuses us with the life and the ‘power’ of Christ’s obedience, we too will increasingly find ourselves at odds with the world and its values, and participation in its shared institutions and practices will begin to chafe at points like an ill-fitting shoe until we are raw.”[5]
  • He descended … A way of saying that Jesus shares in the fullness of death. “Our Lord’s destiny also includes his conception, birth, suffering, crucifixion, death, and burial. After declaring ‘He descended into hell,’ the Creed further recounts his resurrection, ascension, session, and promised coming to judge the living and the dead. Hell therefore could be taken as one of the discrete scenes in the drama of redemption.”[6]
    • How do we dare to look at the cross or hear the story again? What happened in the life of God between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? That is more than a pause but requires us to deeply reflect. Therefore, rejoice when Jesus says, “It is finished.” Only then can we look.[7]
    • Interpretive Possibilities:
      • It could characterize what befell Jesus Christ in his crucifixion.
      • It could portray more deeply the victory over sin and death wrought by his resurrection.[8]
      • 6 referencing Sheol (a place of the dead who await the coming Day of the Lord). See also Ps 139; 16:10; 22:15; 30:3, 9; 69:2. Or, referencing the grave as you await the coming day of the Lord.
      • Sheol as the place of the dead or Hades. Ps. 88; Acts 2:27, 31.
      • Kay, quoting Rufinus (ca. 404), A Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, “In order to accomplish salvation through the weakness of flesh that His divine nature went down to death in the flesh. The intention was not that He might be held fast by death according to the law governing mortals, but that, assured of rising again by His own power, He might open the gates of death. It was as if a king were to go to a dungeon and, entering it, were to fling open its doors, loosen the fetters break the chains, bolts, and bars in pieces, conduct the captives forth to freedom, and restore such as sat in darkness and in the shadow of death [cf. Ps. 107:10] to light and life. In a case like this the king is, of course, said to have been in the dungeon, but not under the same circumstances as the prisoners confined within it. They were there to discharge their penalties, but he to secure their discharge from punishment.”[9]
        • Death is not God. Death does not have the final word. “For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Rom. 14:9).
        • Jesus follows humanity’s descent into death so that humanity may then follow Jesus in rising up to freedom. Jesus is not a victim of death; he is the victor over death.[10]
        • Descended into Hell is the first act of resurrection.
      • Gehenna—the place of fire, eternal punishment taken from the Valley of Hinnom, a ravine south of Jerusalem (2 Chron 28:3; 33:6; Jer. 7:31; 32:35; see Jer. 7:30–34; 19). See also Matt. 25:41.
      • The tension between Sheol (the place of the dead) and Gehenna (a place of eternal punishment).
        • Symbolic interpretation. Not a historical referent in the story, but a referent to the suffering of death on the cross for the redemption of humanity.
        • Kay, referencing Calvin’s interpretation says, “Christ died in the place of sinners (Isa. 53:4–6). As such, he suffered in body and soul the torments of damnation, of God’s severity, wrath, and judgment. ‘No wonder, then, if he is said to have descended into hell, for he suffered the death that God in his wrath had inflicted upon the wicked!’ In this sense, the imagery of Gehenna replaces that of Sheol as more adequate in describing the depths of anguish that the Son of God endured for the sake of sinners.”[11] Therefore, Ps. 22:1. Hell is godforsakenness. Jesus’ dying was not routine death but the death of the ages where sin’s full curse was met. Only “Hell” describes it.
      • Yet, as Jesus approached death, Jesus still cried out to God. Descended into Hell is where death and resurrection meet. It is here, not so much sequential but theological, that sin and redemption meet and victory over sin is won. “He died for All” (2 Cor. 5).
      • The descent into Hell is the place where death, sinners, and Hell hear the Gospel and encounter the Savior, 1 Pet 3:19–20. “According to Dante, the gates of hell have an inscription above them that reads: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’”[12] The Gospel is preached when there is godforsakenness, where there is no hope, and when God seems most silent. Even when Christ is dead and buried, the preaching of the gospel goes on.[13]
  • So, asking again, how do we dare to look at the cross or hear the story again? What happened in the life of God between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? That is more than a pause but requires us to deeply reflect. Therefore, rejoice when Jesus says, “It is finished.” Only then can we look.[14]
    • Parable of Luke 16:19–31. He descended, breaking the logic of Jesus’ own parable by crossing and demonstrating his power over death and being the embodiment of good news.
    • Compare the images of Picasso’s Guernica covered up at the UN, January 27 as described by Johnston.[15]  Do images of Hell call on us to preach the truth of the Gospel?
    • See also John 11:23–27; Matt 16:18; Eph 4:8–10; Rev 1:17–18.
  • Resurrection
    • If the disciples did not expect crucifixion, they certainly did not expect resurrection. [16] Not only in the resurrection predictions (e.g., Mk 8:31) but as already seen in John 20. Resurrection is a day of astonishment.
    • “The resurrection, wrote Barth, ‘involves a definite seeing with the eyes and hearing with the ears and handling with the hands, as the Easter stories say so unmistakably and emphatically. … It involves real eating and drinking, speaking and answering, reasoning … and doubting and then, believing’ (IV/2, p. 143).”[17] Resurrection is as concrete as his death.
    • Therefore, as the risen one, Jesus is transcendent, eternal, and present. The Living Christ is a Real Presence.
    • He was resurrected. You cannot have crucifixion without resurrection and resurrection without crucifixion.
      • Cross shaped life
      • Resurrection shaped life
    • Along with the incarnation, the resurrection of the body (soma) exhorts us to take the creative material world seriously.
    • I believe, “He is risen!” Except when it is embarrassing or inconvenient to believe so. Except when completing my taxes, casting my vote, making investments, receiving the immigrant, loving my enemies, respecting all peoples, or other morally compromising positions. What is a resurrection-shaped life?
    • Resurrected body—not corrupt but material and spiritual. His resurrected hands still bore the scars of crucifixion. Jesus’ bones are not still with us in a grave. (See 1 Cor. 15, Phil. 3:21 and 1 John 3:2).
    • “The nature of the resurrected body, according to Christian theology, is described as transformed, imperishable, and glorified. The most detailed description comes from 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, where the Apostle Paul contrasts our current physical bodies with the spiritual, resurrected body. Here are some key aspects:
      • Imperishable & Immortal – Unlike our current bodies, which age, decay, and die, the resurrected body will be incorruptible and will never perish (1 Corinthians 15:42, 53-54).
      • Glorified – It will be raised in glory, meaning it will be radiant and perfected, free from the weaknesses and flaws of earthly bodies (1 Corinthians 15:43; Philippians 3:21).
      • Powerful – The resurrected body will be filled with power, no longer subject to frailty, sickness, or suffering (1 Corinthians 15:43).
      • Spiritual, yet Physical – Paul contrasts the “natural body” with a “spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). This doesn’t mean it will be non-physical, but that it will be fully empowered by the Spirit of God, like Jesus’ resurrected body.
      • Like Christ’s Resurrected Body – Philippians 3:21 says that believers’ bodies will be transformed to be like Christ’s resurrected body. After His resurrection, Jesus could be touched (Luke 24:39), eat food (Luke 24:42-43), and yet also appear and disappear at will (Luke 24:31, John 20:19).
      • Perfectly Suited for Eternal Life – The resurrected body is made for the new heavens and new earth, where there is no death, pain, or sorrow (Revelation 21:4).”[18]

 

[1] Myers, The Apostles’ Creed, 58.

[2] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 105.

[3] John 20:1–18.

[4] See Hart, Confessing and Believing, 110–11, for significance and limitations of atonement imagery.

[5] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 123.

[6] James F. Kay, “He Descended into Hell,” 118, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[7] Scott Black Johnston, “Harrowing,” 131, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[8] James F. Kay, “He Descended into Hell,” 118, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[9] James F. Kay, “He Descended into Hell,” 120–21, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[10] James F. Kay, “He Descended into Hell,” 121, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[11] James F. Kay, “He Descended into Hell,” 125, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[12] Scott Black Johnston, “Harrowing,” 135, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[13] Scott Black Johnston, “Harrowing,” 135, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[14] Scott Black Johnston, “Harrowing,” 131, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[15] Scott Black Johnston, “Harrowing,” 132, 135, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[16] N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, (London: SPCK, 2007), 51.

[17] George Hunsinger, “On the Third Day He Arose Again from the Dead,” 151, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[18] OpenAI. 2025. ChatGPT (AI Language Model). Accessed February 21, 2025. https://openai.com