I was having a conversation the other day, over dinner, with Greg, Samantha and a few other folks. (I only mention Greg and Sam’s names because our other friends don’t yet exist in the blog world.) Anyway, amongst conversations about dating, marriage and desires, we somehow ended up discussing the common belief that Jesus Christ descended to hell during the 3 days. Both Sam and I agreed that this was most definitely in the Bible and I was rather vehemently convinced of this fact (or so I thought). However, Greg held his ground and mentioned that he had actually researched this very topic and found that this premise is only discussed in the Apostles Creed (hyper link provided by Sam). Soooo, now after performing several word searches on “hell”, “Hades”, “descend” and “keys” I’ve come up lacking. Greg was correct. The Bible most definitely does not state that Jesus descended to hell.
This realization again brings up my same frustration with false teaching in the church. Obviously the concept of Jesus descending to hell to get the keys has been drilled into me head by someone, as I’ve never even studied the Apostles Creed. I’ve heard of it, but never researched it. I don’t care if every “saint” and supposed godly wise man who ever existed states something. If the teaching is outside of scripture it ought not to be taught. Discussed, yes, taught, absolutely NO.
So Greg, you were right and I was wrong. Everyone else feel free to pipe in (if anyone still reads this blog. I know I’ve been very bad about keeping up on this).
Here are the relevant (or not so relevant) verses I found during my word searches. None clearly reference this concept:
Acts 2:26-28
Matthew 16:17-20
Revelation 1:17-19
Revelation 20:13-15
Yes there are many possible inferences, but nothing clear. I recently completed an OT study and I don’t recall anything there which would elude to this belief either.
Again this is an open topic. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever pondered this, so please comment and share, which ever side you agree with. These are simply my preliminary findings. If I find any more pertinent scripture I will post them.
