A bothersome word

…HE DESCENDED INTO HELL…

This phrase is the most troublesome utterance in the Apostles Creed, one of the earliest credal statements in Christianity, dating from 8th Century CE in its final form, but traditionally marched all the way back to the original Apostles (although that is impossible to pinpoint since the earliest reference to that authorship did not appear before the 4th Century CE, and that reference had no text with it!). The phrase itself may be in reference to Paul’s statement in Ephesians about Christ descending to the lower reaches in the work of reconciliation (cf. Eph. 4:9). It is so troublesome that some Christian communities drop it when they use the Apostles Creed or alter it to something like “…descended to the dead…”

I believe we need to take it as it comes.

In so doing, we allow the creed to speak of a nearly unimaginable hope and to give a powerful understanding to Paul’s exuberant optimism in Romans 8 in which he proclaims without reservation that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. 

HELL

The antipode to the Kingdom of God—as far removed from the presence of God as it is possible to be. The more philosophical expressions of faith define such a place existentially—it is non-being. More poetic interpreters define it as the place where there the love of God ceases to exist, not because it cannot be there, but because God withholds it. John Milton and Dante painted a multi-tiered realm of worsening punishment for deepening sin until we find the figure of Lucifer ruling in abject darkness, the fiery pits no longer present as having been exhausted by the sheer evil of depravity. 

Biblically, hell is something else. The Old Testament does not speak of it, only of the depths of Sheol, the realm of the dead where souls slumber after the burst of life. Judgment is here and now in the absence of God. Punishments come through the natural order or divine manipulation of human armies. Humanity feels and experiences the consequences of rejecting the presence and rule of God. Life without God is hopeless, meaningless, and empty—a figurative exile that may well be experienced in a literal Exile. In the New Testament, Matthew sees fiery lakes for the unrepentant as well as an outer darkness where there is “weeping, wailing, and the gnashing of teeth.” Paul sees a place of judgment. John of Patmos brings hell on earth in his visions of the apocalypse. In each case, hell is the absence of God, existence apart from God’s gracious ordering presence. It is a return to the primordial chaos of Genesis 1. 

We owe more to our understanding of hell to Dante and John Milton than the Bible, truth be told. 

However, as the creed speaks of it, it defines hell as that place that is abandoned by God. It flows directly from Christ’s cry on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So totally did God withdraw from Christ that as Christ died, he died into total emptiness. It was not the hopeful death of faith, awaiting the New Creation. It was the abject death of despair. Death is simply the end, no more, no less—life is done, there is nothing more, so life is worthless, hopeless, and vacant, emptied by death of all meaning and possibility. This is the hopeless death Paul admonishes us not to enter—“Do not grieve as those who have no hope.” 

Hell, then, is profoundly defined as hopelessness as an existential, total state of being.

HOPE

The creed’s affirmation and assertion that Christ entered this state of being means there is no end to the reach of God’s redeeming grace. There is nowhere to fall from God’s presence, as Psalm 139 catalogs. 

This hope is one for all of us, especially in the context in which we live. Sartre seems particularly insightful as he defines hell thusly—“Hell is other people” (“No Exit”). Nearly everyone I speak with is weary of things as they are. A gridlocked government ruled by the exertion of Self by every elected official; the wars and rumors of war that plague us always; the wobbly, weak-kneed economy; the drive of material acquisition as the sole source of happiness; and so on leave us grasping for anything more, anything depthful, and anything hopeful. Non-being seems a present reality. 

Christ entered that state. He did not simply join the dead in being dead—he entered the Abyss of dead spirits, dead hearts, dead minds, and dead outlooks. He entered hell. His cry of forsakenness is echoed daily wherever suffering simply becomes too much to bear, to witness, or to meet. It is the great shout from the skeptic. Christ entered it. 

When we feel farthest removed from God, God draws most deeply to us. 

That is the assertion of our creed.

That is hope.