Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

He descended into hell...

Saturday, April 14, 2001

Luke 24:1-12
Very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

On the seventh day of the week, on Saturday, where was Jesus? Seems like his presence was as unpredictable in death as in life.

Jesus told his disciples and friends that he would die and then return in resurrection on the third day. This is the second day. There are neither songs nor singers named Second Day. We have little to do on the second day while we wait for the third. What was Jesus doing?

The Apostles Creed describes the first day, "He was crucified, dead and buried." Description of the third day reads, "On the third day he rose again from the dead." In between there is the phrase, "he descended into hell."

1 Peter 3:18-19 reads,

He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago ...

So maybe Jesus was busy Saturday preaching. There's another way to look at this, though, suggested by John Calvin (this is a little tough to read...):

We must seek for a surer exposition of Christ's descent to hell: and the word of God furnishes us with one not only pious and holy, but replete with excellent consolation.
Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God's anger, and satisfy his righteous judgement, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death.
We lately quoted from the Prophet (Isaiah), that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him" that he "was bruised for our iniquities" that he "bore our infirmities;" expressions which intimate, that, like a sponsor and surety for the guilty, and, as it were, subjected to condemnation, he undertook and paid all the penalties which must have been exacted from them, the only exception being, that the pains of death could not hold him.
Hence there is nothing strange in its being said that he descended to hell, seeing he endured the death which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God.
It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded burial should be placed after it.
But after explaining what Christ endured in the sight of man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and incomprehensible judgement which he endured before God, to teach us that not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price--that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.
(Institutes of the Christian Religion, Chapter 16, Section 10)

Calvin thus paints a picture of the Saturday judgment and banishment of Jesus as he "undertook and paid all the penalties" for us. No wonder Jesus cried on the cross, "My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me?"

Calvin then says, "the pains of death could not hold him." Jesus, being the author and source of life, gives himself up in obedience to death, but then it cannot keep him. Surprise, Satan! Carman's song about Jesus' resurrection, "The Champion" pounds home this truth. In the battle, Jesus is knocked to the ground, the referee begins to count, 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 -...Satan tells him to count the other way, but the referee continues, and Jesus rises from the mat. The victor. The champion.

So there is the business of the third day. About that Calvin continues:

For seeing that in the cross, death, and burial of Christ, nothing but weakness appears, faith must go beyond all these, in order that it may be provided with full strength.
(Chapter 16, Section 13)

It's Saturday ... but Sunday's coming!

Search me, O God and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
(Psalm 139)

Devotions Archive

He descended into hell...

Saturday, April 14, 2001