Jesus descended to Hades/Hell?
Thank you to all those who shared Bible verses to throw light onto this question.
There seem to be quite a diverse range of ideas about what is involved in this "harrowing of hell/Hades".
Some views are of a "dispensational" nature, with the Old Testament saints being held in a "waiting area" - excluded from heaven but protected from the torments of Hades until the death and resurrection of Jesus - "the limbo of the fathers".
[This idea of the "limbus patrum" emerges in western medieval speculation, leading up to Thomas Aquinas who tries to give formal definition to it. Follow the reasoning of Thomas here - https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5069.htm ]
Other views are not so much about the saints in the intermediate state, but more to do with victory preaching over the fallen angels in the underworld.
Several issues to consider...
1. What happened to Jesus Himself after death? Did He go directly to Paradise or did He first/later visit Hades for several reasons?
2. When and how did He preach to the spirits in prison - the fallen angels from Genesis 6, who disobeyed at the time of Noah? This might have been after His resurrection, but it does seem to involve a visit to the "underworld" whenever it occurred.
3. Did He preach to Old Testament saints who were not in the third heaven but were still held in a "better" region of Hades called "Abraham's bosom"?
Or were the Old Testament saints all in Paradise and so if Jesus preached to spirits in Hades, He was not preaching to the saints but to unconverted spirits?
To well-intentioned pagans?
To "those who had never heard"?
Is this what 1 Peter 4:6 is all about?
For example, could it be that Dives from Luke 16:19-31 responded to the preaching of Jesus in Hades and that he was saved?
As Jesus sent the Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature on earth, so did He also go to preach the Gospel to every creature under the earth?
4. If Jesus did preach to Old Testament saints in part of Hades, WHY were Old Testament saints kept in Hades if they were regenerate, justified saints? What is the Biblical explanation for this? How are they enjoying SOME but not ALL fruits of Christ's death, resurrection and ascension? - thinking especially of verses like Psalm 80:17 when the Old Testament Church explicitly trusts in the ascended Man at the Father's right hand? (This point may not make sense to everyone, but it is an important matter in my own mind ...)
4a. If the Old Testament saints had to remain in the better end of Hades until the ascension of Jesus (thinking perhaps of Psalm 68), then is it important for the LORD Jesus to also experience Hades with those saints before going to Paradise, the third heaven?
5. What happened to the "structure" of the intermediate state after the resurrection of Jesus and why?
Is this related to the binding of Satan?
Is this related to the global expansion of Church, seen at Pentecost? (Michael Heiser...)
What happens to the "better end of Hades"?
How common or necessary is this more "dispensational" view?
6. What is the relevance of the bodies coming out of tombs at the death of Jesus and then going into the city at the resurrection of Jesus?
Is this an earthly visible effect of what was happening in Hades?
Are the saints first raised but remain in the tombs to indicate the kind of life that the saints had in the "better part of Hades" - but then they are allowed to go about the "holy city", just as the dead saints were led by Jesus from "the better part of Hades" up to the Paradise of God, the Divine Holy City in the third heaven?
7. Given that the Oriental Orthodox Church accepts Enoch as Scripture; and given that Enoch seems to cover this preaching work of Christ in Hades - does this have any implications about the canon of Scripture?
NOTE - do the Old Testament saints go to Hades when they die in the books of Enoch? As far as I can tell, in Enoch the Old Testament saints go straight to Paradise when they die - and isn't that the view of Maccabees also?
If the saints are not in Hades, to whom does Jesus preach?
8. Non-Biblical sources (early and medieval Christians - as well as even pagan sources on the structure of the underworld) seem to add details and even narratives not found within the Bible.
How are these sources to be assessed and used?
Can they ever be included in Church teaching and preaching - especially for Protestants who wish to hold to Paul's rule of "do not go beyond what is written"?
This more "dispensational" approach that sees Old Testament saints as consigned to Hades/Sheol until the death & resurrection of Jesus raises quite serious questions.
I get that Jesus goes to preach His victory within Hades and also within deeper aspects of the underworld.
I get that there may have been great celebration within Paradise when He joins the saints in Paradise. The sense of the Head joining His Body in the intermediate state seems very powerful indeed.
I get that He may preach to the saints in Paradise, proclaiming the triumph of the Cross.
However, the "limbo of the fathers" idea... I'm not persuaded that this is the hope of the Old Testament saints in the text itself - and also if the saints are justified with the righteousness of Christ, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, adopted in the family of God... what are they doing in Sheol/Hades in death?
[I understand that some would argue that in Luke 16, they are all in the same place - Hades/Sheol... but that a large chasm separates the burning area of the wicked from the cool, watered area around Abraham. However, the text of Luke 16 only speaks of the rich man being in Hades.
Psalm 49 is relevant - Hades is the fate of those who trust in themselves; but those who trust in the LORD will be redeemed from such a fate - "He will surely take me to Himself." (Psalm 49:15-17).
If we think of Ezekiel 31, the proper place for humanity is Paradise, the Garden of God... and it is the wicked who are cut off from Paradise and sent down to the realm of the dead - Ezekiel 32:17-32.
Psalm 23 ends with the simple assurance - "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Think of the hope of Psalm 84 - "How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God... Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you."
Jesus reminds the Sadducees (who didn't even believe in any intermediate state at all) that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive in the presence of God - "I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob"]