The Apostles’ Creed and Christ’s Death

Excerpted from Dr. David E. Seip’s upcoming book: Heaven.

In recent times there has been debate within the church regarding what happened to Christ during the three-day span of his death and his body lying in the tomb. The question needing to be settled in the church is where did Jesus go after his death and before his resurrection? Did he descend into hell—as the Apostles Creed states? Some prominent names in ministry appear in the list of those who oppose Christ’s descent into hell. Curiously, they fall mostly into the theological camp associated with the Reformed Church. It’s curious because it is the Reformed faith that has a greater than average respect for church history and the continuity of theological thought over the span of the Christian church’s existence. How can they now hold such a divergent view from those of the early church fathers and what they believed about the subject—those who lived closest to the days of Christ on earth.

It’s one thing to agree theologically with other believers on the subject of Christ’s descent into hell, but it is a far different thing to agree with those whose premise on the subject is based on faulty theology or intentionally twisted doctrine to promote a heretical movement. I am specifically referring to the so-called Word of Faith movement. We know it more generally as the prosperity gospel, health and wealth, and name it and claim it movement. The leaders of this church movement have millions of proselytes who faithfully follow such charismatic leaders as Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Paula White, and Joyce Meyer, to name just a few.

Several things make all the prosperity preachers consistent in their teaching. The first is a profoundly intentional distortion of Scripture. At the pinnacle of that distortion is a diminutive presentation of God’s power and absolute being. They particularly distort who Christ was and is, and they reduce his atonement to something that in and of itself was insufficient to save from sin. The whole of the distortion is to replace God’s higher power with their own in order to captivate their followers with a hope that is on this life, and not our eternal life beyond. Prosperity in this life is the clarion call which is based no less on human greed and need. “God wants you to be successful and wealthy,” is their repeated cry. “Believe that God wants you to have it, and it will be given.” Of course, these pastors all show proof that God honors our earthly desires. Most fly around in their private jets, live in multi-million dollar homes, and drive absurdly expensive automobiles.

Yet, if we were to search scriptures for biblical proof of God desiring to grant us our carnal wishes we would discover quite the opposite. The only place in scripture where theree is an attempt to trade worship for wealth is in Matthew 4:8-10, where it reads, Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'” Paul reminds us, that “there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. (1 Timothy 6:6–8).

Paul also reminds us in his letter to Timothy that “there will be a time that is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). That time, concerning the Word of Faith heresy, came in recent history, with its founder and origin debatable. Nevertheless, its gospel message of prosperity is only the end point in its heresy. Its most egregious heresy is how it treats e atoning work of Jesus Christ. Word of Faith teachings proclaim that Jesus was required to die spiritually on the cross, but that our redemption was not secured there. He had to descend into hell, and from there be reborn. The cross was insufficient to accomplish our atonement. Jesus had to spiritually die to “become” sin. Jesus did not propitiate my sin upon himself; he literally became sin. He became one with the nature a Satan, and so he descended to the lower parts of the earth where sin resides in order to become death that man might live. Where this heresy originates is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain, it does not represent what the Bible says about atonement, nor does it represent what the Bible says about Christ descending into hell, nor what the earliest church fathers understood about Christ’s descending.

The pomposity of the Word of Faith preachers is indisputable. Their attitude is quite the opposite of what we read about Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 — “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” He goes on to say in 2 Corinthians 11:27, “in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” Surly if the prosperity gospel was biblical, Paul could never have written these words.

The very foundation of our Christian faith is the atonement. It is the central theme of biblical theology running from the Old Testament sacrificial system of blood sacrifice to the New Testament atonement of Jesus Christ accomplishing atonement through his shed blood; our sin expiated as an acceptable sacrifice to God, the Father. On the cross he took our sins upon himself, and with his resurrection secured our place with him for all eternity. Christ’s descent into hell between the time of his death and his resurrection accomplished different than redemption.

Looking now at sound theologians and preachers who hold to a true view of the atonement may not agree with the teaching of Christ descending into hell after his death and before his resurrection. For example, John Piper does not agree with affirming scripture to mean Christ descended. He goes so far as to disagree with the Apostles’ Creed when it states that “He was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell.” He said, “For these and other reasons, it seems best to me to omit from the Apostles Creed the clause, “he descended into hell,” rather than giving it other meanings that are more defensible, the way Calvin does.”

We might also turn to R.C. Sprout, a sound theologian and teach — yet, decidedly one of Reformed faith. In his article, What Does the Apostles’ Creed Mean When It Says That Jesus Descended Into Hell? He admits in his article that the Apostles’ Creed was partly a response to the early Christian community’s attempt to give a summary of apostolic teaching. And, then, in his next breath he uses these words: “We see this problem: Jesus when he’s on the cros in his dying agony, speaks to the thief next to him and assures him that ‘today you will be with me in paradise.’” Sprout’s response to this is that Jesus on the cross seems to indicate that he was planning to go to “paradise,” which, in Sprout’s words, “is not to be confused with hell.” For Sprout this is a “problem.” The problem is not whether Jesus descended to hell to experience further suffering, as some want to believe. It’s rather resolving the issue of Jesus declaring that he would be that day in paradise, and not in hell. Piper also comments on this passage “That’s the only clue we have as to what Jesus was doing between death and resurrection. He said, “Today—this Friday afternoon, after we’re both dead—you and I will be in paradise together.” I don’t think the thief went to hell and that hell is called paradise. I think he went to heaven and that Jesus was there with him.”

One of the verses in the Bible used as a proof text for Christ’s descent into hell (and one that is refuted by Sprout and many other Reformed theologians, comes from 1 Peter 3:18–19: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison…” The other often used Scripture to affirm Christ’s descent is Ephesians 4:8-10 (the Scripture we read together this morning): “Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’ ( In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)’”

What is the origin of the Apostles’ Creed, from which we carry forward this now controversial phrase, He descended into Hell? Although dismissed today, there is an ancient tradition that this Creed was the joint work of the Apostles. But it was termed the Apostles’ Creed , not because it was composed by the Apostles themselves, in the very form of words in which it is now recited, but partly because its doctrines are the doctrines taught by the Apostles, and partly because it is derived from Churches which were termed Apostolic. We must then, initially conclude that there words of the Creed now expressed were and are now essentially necessary to a sound faith and correct practice. These early Creeds, out of necessity of their faith, became a summary of the articles of indispensable belief. Irenaeus, the scholar of Polycarp, the disciple of John, repeats a Creed similar to ours, and assures us that “the Church, dispersed throughout the whole world, had received this faith from the Apostles and their disciples.”

What did the early church think about the inclusion of the words “He descended into hell,” in the Apostles Creed? We can find a hint of their understanding in a mid-nineteenth century Book of Common Prayer, published by the American arm of the Established church of England. At this date in time the teachings of Reformed theology were only beginning to share doctrine with the theological system of dispensationalism. Therefore, in the mid-nineteenth century, orthodoxy was still principally defined by the Reformed church. And we will find that what it believed about this controversial phrase in the Apostles’ Creed was different from what prominent Reformed theologians and preachers believe today. In contrast, the early Christian church was not at all dismissive of the now controversial phrase. And in the American publication of the Book of Common Prayer in the mid-nineteenth century was only partially dismissive of the phrase. It provided that “any Churches may omit the words, He descended into Hell, or may instead use the words, He went into the place of departed spirits, which are considered as words of the same meaning in the Creed.” The alternative expression could be used on the authority of the passage in Psalm 16:10 — “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol…” The word used here as Sheol, and further along in the Book of Acts, where the passage is quoted, signifies the invisible state, or the state of the souls when parted from the body; and not the place of final punishment, which the word is more commonly used today.

Thus, we are able to clear-up the misunderstanding of what Christ meant when he proclaimed to the thief beside him on the cross that today he would be with him in paradise. It was an expression which implies that the Lord himself was that day to be in the happy state called paradise, and where the dead, which die in the Lord rest from their labors.