The New Testament’s many statements that Jesus was “raised from the dead” (1 Cor 15:20) presuppose that, before the resurrection, he stayed in the abode of the dead. This is the first meaning the apostolic preaching gave to Christ’s descent into hell: Jesus, like all men, experienced death, and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he went down there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.
Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” (Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Greek), because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. This is the state of all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer; which does not mean their lot is the same, as Jesus shows in the parable of poor Lazarus, who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”. “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to free the damned or to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
“The gospel was preached even to the dead…” (1 Pet 4:6).
The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. It is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase brief in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all people of all times and places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
So Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (Jn 5:25).
Jesus, “the Author of life”, by his death destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil”, and delivered “all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb 2:14-15).
Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev 1:18),
and “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil 2:10).
“Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still, because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and has gone to wake those who have slept for ages… He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. He wants to go and visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the captive Adam and his fellow prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is both their God and their son… ‘I am your God, who for your sake have become your son… Awake, O sleeper, for I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.'” (Ancient homily for Holy Saturday)
In brief
By the expression “He descended into hell”, the Creed confesses that Jesus really died and that, through his death for us, he conquered death and the devil, “who has the power of death” (Heb 2:14).
In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 632-637
