"Descended to Where?!"
Three different times since Easter I have been asked the same question: “Why did they change the Creed?” “In what way do you mean?” I replied. “They changed the part after the death and burial of Jesus where he goes to the Dead. It used to be to hell.” Now I am not sure why this change has sparked attention and concern among the faithful, but it does focus on possibly the most difficult to understand part of the Apostle’s Creed.
The old red book, Service Book and Hymnal, has the Lord Jesus descending into hell. The green book, Lutheran Book of Worship, uses the same phrase, “descended into hell,” but adds an asterisk and footnote, “Or, ‘descended to the dead.’” The cranberry book, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, places “descended to the dead,” into the text, with an asterisk and lengthier footnote, “Or, ‘descended into hell,’ another translation of this text in widespread use.” The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer uses “descended to the dead” in the order of service, but in Article III of its Articles of Religion states “As Christ died for us, and was buried; so also is it to be believed, that he went down into Hell.” The Roman Catholic St. Joseph Sunday Missal uses the phrase in the Apostle’s Creed “descended to the dead.”
According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church article “The Descent of Christ into Hell”;
“This belief is based on such Biblical passages as MT. 27. 52 f., Lk 23.43, I Pet. 3.18-20, though various opinions have been held as to their exact meaning. Some have thought that the descent into hell refers to the victory over all powers of evil; others have connected it with the Dereliction on the Cross and the full bearing by Christ of the fruits of sin in our stead. Most Christian theologians, however, believe that it refers to the visit of our Lord after His death to the realm of existence, which is neither heaven nor hell in the ultimate sense, but a place or state where souls of pre-Christian people waited for the message of the Gospel, and whither the penitent thief passed after his death on the cross (Lk. 23.43).”
I do not have the minutes of the committee that made our Creed changes available, but I would suppose that the term “hell” implies a place of punishment following the Great Judgment, but that the term “dead” implies a place or state of anticipation of resurrection, followed by judgment, and then assignment of an appropriate eternal destination. The term is close in meaning to the Old Testament Hebrew term Sheol, variously translated as “the underworld, the place of the departed spirits,” “grave,” “pit,” or “hell.”
The term Hades sometimes enters into this conversation, and comes from the name of the Roman deity of the underworld. Gehenna, sometimes translated as “hell,” means the “place of burning” and refers to an open, continuously burning garbage dump in the
My conclusions about the change are these: First, “descended to the dead” is in line with Old Testament understandings, and is not prejudiced by implications of judgment not yet passed. Second, Jesus’ death on
Pastor John K. Stake
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