Affirming the Apostles ’ Creed
Page 5
Again, as our reconciliation, the cross was redemption, rescue from bondage and misery by the payment of a price (see Ephesians 1:7; Romans 3:24; Revelation 5:9; Mark 10:45); and as redemption, it was victory over all hostile powers that had kept us, and wanted still to keep us, in sin and out of God’s favor (Colossians 2:13-;15). All these angles must be explored if we are to grasp the whole truth.
“The Son of God... loved me and gave himself for me”; so “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:20; 6:14, kjv). So said Paul. Thank God, I can identify. Can you?
FURTHER BIBLE STUDY
The meaning of the cross:
Isaiah 53
Romans 3:19-;26
Hebrews 10:1-;25
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
What is the full meaning that Christians find in the word “suffered” (Latin passus )?
“Both God and men were agents of Jesus’ passion.” Explain.
What does Christ’s death have to do with your sins?
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.
1 PETER 3: 18
CHAPTER 10
He Descended
into Hell
Death has been called “the new obscenity,” the nasty thing that no polite person nowadays will talk about in public. But death, even when unmentionable, remains inescapable. The one sure fact of life is that one day, with or without warning, quietly or painfully, it is going to stop. How will I, then, cope with death when my turn comes?
CHRISTIAN VICTORY
Christians hold that the Jesus of the Scriptures is alive and that those who know him as Savior, Lord, and Friend find in this knowledge a way through all life’s problems, dying included. For “Christ leads me through no darker rooms / Than he went through before.” Having tasted death himself, he can support us while we taste it and carry us through the great change to share the life beyond death into which he himself has passed. Death without Christ is “the king of terrors,” but death with Christ loses the “sting,” the power to hurt, that it otherwise would have.
John Preston, the Puritan, knew this. When he lay dying, they asked him if he feared death, now that it was so close. “No,” whispered Preston; “I shall change my place, but I shall not change my company.” As if to say: I shall leave my friends, but not my Friend, for he will never leave me.
This is victory—victory over death and the fear it brings. And it is to point the way to this victory that the Creed, before announcing Jesus’ resurrection, declares: “he descended into hell.” Though this clause did not establish itself in the Creed until the fourth century and is therefore not used by some churches, what it says is of very great importance, as we can now see.
HADES, NOT GEHENNA
The English is misleading, for “hell” has changed its sense since the English form of the Creed was fixed. Originally “hell” meant the place of the departed as such, corresponding to the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol. That is what it means here, where the Creed echoes Peter’s statement that Psalm 16:10, “thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades” (so RSV: av has “hell”), was a prophecy fulfilled when Jesus rose (see Acts 2:27-31). But since the seventeenth century “hell” has been used to signify only the state of final retribution for the godless, for which the New Testament name is Gehenna.
What the Creed means, however, is that Jesus entered, not Gehenna, but Hades—that is, that he really died, and that it was from a genuine death, not a simulated one, that he rose.
Perhaps it should be said (though one shrinks from laboring something so obvious) that “descended” does not imply that the way from Palestine to Hades is down into the ground, any more than “rose” implies that Jesus returned to surface level up the equivalent of a mine shaft! The language of descent is used because Hades, being the place of the disembodied, is lower in worth and dignity than is life on earth, where body and soul are together and humanity is in that sense whole.
JESUS IN HADES
“Being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18), Jesus entered Hades, and Scripture tells us briefly what he did there.
First, by his presence he made Hades into Paradise (a place of pleasure) for the penitent thief (cf. Luke 23:43), and presumably for all others who died trusting him during his earthly ministry, just as he does now for the faithful departed (see Philippians 1:21-23; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8).
Second, he perfected the spirits of Old Testament believers (Hebrews 12:23; cf. 11:40), bringing them out of the gloom that Sheol, “the pit,” had hitherto been for them (cf.Psalm 88:3-6, 10-12), into this same Paradise experience. This is the core of truth in Medieval fantasies of the “harrowing of hell.”
Now we can face death knowing that when it comes
we shall not find ourselves alone.
He has been there before us,
and he will see us through.
Third, 1 Peter 3:19 tells us that he “proclaimed” (presumably, about his kingdom and appointment as the world’s judge) to the imprisoned “spirits” who had rebelled in antediluvian times (presumably the fallen angels of 2 Peter 2:4ff., who are also “the sons of God” of Genesis 6:1-4). Some have based on this one text a hope that all humans who did not hear the gospel in this life, or who having heard it rejected it, will have it savingly preached to them in the life to come, but Peter’s words do not provide the least warrant for that inference.
What makes Jesus’ entry into Hades important for us is not, however, any of this, but simply the fact that now we can face death knowing that when it comes we shall not find ourselves alone. He has been there before us, and he will see us through.
FURTHER BIBLE STUDY
The Christian’s attitude toward death:
Philippians 1:19—26
2 Corinthians 5:1—10
2 Timothy 4:6—18
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
Define and differentiate the biblical terms Hades, Sheol, Gehenna.
How do we know that Christ’s experience of death was genuine? What is the importance of this fact?
What difference does it make whether we face death with Christ or without him?
And if Christ has not been raised,
your faith is futile and you are still
in your sins.
1 CORINTHIANS 15: 17
CHAPTER 11
The Third Day
Suppose that Jesus, having died on the cross, had stayed dead. Suppose that, like Socrates or Confucius, he was now no more than a beautiful memory. Would it matter? We would still have his example and teaching; wouldn’t they be enough?
JESUS’ RISING IS CRUCIAL
Enough for what? Not for Christianity. Had Jesus not risen but stayed dead, the bottom would drop out of Christianity, for four things would then be true.
First, to quote Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:17: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
Second, there is then no hope of our rising either; we must expect to stay dead too.
Third, if Jesus Christ is not risen, then he is not reigning and will not return, and every single item in the Creed after “suffered... and [was] buried” would have to be struck out.
Fourth, Christianity cannot be what the first Christians thought it was—fellowship with a living Lord who is identical with the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels can still be your hero, but he cannot be your Savior if he did not rise.
A FACT OF HISTORY
To show that it views Jesus’ resurrection as a fact of history, the Creed actually times it—”the third day,” counting inclusively (the ancients’ way) from the day when Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate” in about a.d. 30. On that precise day in Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, Jesus came
alive and vacated a rock tomb, and death was conquered for all time.
Can we be sure it happened? The evidence is solid. The tomb was empty, and nobody could produce the body. For more than a month afterward, the disciples kept meeting Jesus alive, always unexpectedly, usually in groups (from two to five hundred). Hallucinations don’t happen this way!
The disciples, for their part, were sure that the risen Christ was no fancy and tirelessly proclaimed his rising in the face of ridicule, persecution, and even death—a most effective way of scotching the malicious rumor that they stole Jesus’ body (cf. Matthew 28:11-15).
The corporate experience of the Christian church over nineteen centuries chimes in with the belief that Jesus rose, for the risen Lord truly “walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way,” and communion with him belongs to the basic Christian awareness of reality.
No sense can be made of any of this evidence save by supposing that Jesus really rose.
To believe in Jesus Christ as Son of God and
living Savior is certainly more than an exercise
of reason, but in the face of the evidence it is
the only reasonable thing a person can do.
Well might Professor C. F. D. Moule issue his challenge: “If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested in the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole of the size and shape of the resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with?” The actual historical effect is inconceivable without the resurrection of Jesus as its objective historical cause.
FACING THE EVIDENCE
A Christian in public debate accused his skeptical opponent of having more faith than he—“for,” he said, “in face of the evidence, I can’t believe that Jesus did not rise, and you can!” It really is harder to disbelieve the resurrection than to accept it, much harder. Have you yet seen it that way? To believe in Jesus Christ as Son of God and living Savior, and to echo the words of ex-doubter Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” is certainly more than an exercise of reason, but in the face of the evidence it is the only reasonable thing a person can do.
WHAT JESUS’ RISING MEANS
What is the significance of Jesus’ rising? In a word, it marked Jesus out as the Son of God (Romans 1:4); it vindicated his righteousness (John 16:10); it demonstrated victory over death (Acts 2:24); it guaranteed the believer’s forgiveness and justification (1 Corinthians 15:17; Romans 4:25) and his own future resurrection too (1 Corinthians 15:18); and it brings him into the reality of resurrection life now (Romans 6:4). Marvelous! You could speak of Jesus’ rising as the most hopeful—hope-full—thing that has ever happened—and you would be right!
FURTHER BIBLE STUDY
The resurrection of Jesus:
John 20:1-;18
1 Corinthians 15:1-;28
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
How would Christianity be different if Christ had not risen?
What evidence is there for Jesus’ resurrection?
Why does Packer speak of believing that Christ rose as “the only reasonable thing a person can do”? Do you agree?
Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that,
who was raised—who is at the right hand of God,
who indeed is interceding for us.
ROMANS 8: 34
CHAPTER 12
He Ascended into
Heaven
He ascended” echoes Jesus’ “I am ascending” (John 20:17; compare 6:62). “Into heaven” echoes “taken up from you into heaven,” the angels’ words in the Ascension story (Acts 1:11). But what is “heaven”? Is it the sky or outer space? Does the Creed mean that Jesus was the first astronaut? No; both it and the Bible are making a different point.
WHAT HEAVEN MEANS
“Heaven” in the Bible means three things: 1. The endless, self-sustaining life of God. In this sense, God always dwelled in heaven, even when there was no earth. 2. The state of angels or men as they share the life of God, whether in foretaste now or in fullness hereafter. In this sense, the Christian’s reward, treasure, and inheritance are all in heaven, and heaven is shorthand for the Christian’s final hope. 3. The sky, which, being above us and more like infinity than anything else we know, is an emblem in space and time of God’s eternal life, just as the rainbow is an emblem of his everlasting covenant (see Genesis 9:8-17).
The Bible and the Creed proclaim that in the Ascension, forty days after his rising, Jesus entered heaven in sense 2 in a new and momentous way: thenceforth he “sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty,” ruling all things in his Father’s name and with his Father’s almightiness for the long-term good of his people. “On the right hand of God” signifies not a palatial location but a regal function: see Acts 2:33ff.; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20ff.; Hebrews 1:3, 13; 10:12ff.; 12:2. He “ascended far above all the heavens” (that is, reentered his pre-incarnate life, a life unrestricted by anything created) “that he might fill all things” (that is, make his kingly power effective everywhere; see Ephesians 4:10). “Ascended” is, of course, a picture-word implying exaltation (“going up!”) to a condition of supreme dignity and power.
THE ASCENSION
What happened at the Ascension, then, was not that Jesus became a spaceman, but that his disciples were shown a sign, just as at the Transfiguration. As C. S. Lewis put it, “they saw first a short vertical movement and then a vague luminosity (that is what ‘cloud’ presumably means...) and then nothing.” In other words, Jesus’ final withdrawal from human sight, to rule until he returns in judgment, was presented to the disciples’ outward eyes as a going up into heaven in sense 3. This should not puzzle us. Withdrawal had to take place somehow, and going up, down, or sideways, failing to appear or suddenly vanishing were the only possible ways. Which would signify most clearly that Jesus would henceforth be reigning in glory? That answers itself.
So the message of the Ascension story is: “Jesus the Savior reigns!”
OUR HEARTS IN HEAVEN
In a weary world in which grave philosophers were counseling suicide as man’s best option, the unshakable, rollicking optimism of the first Christians, who went on feeling on top of the world however much the world seemed to be on top of them, made a vast impression. (It still does, when Christians are Christian enough to show it!) Three certainties were, and are, its secret.
The first concerns God’s world. It is that Christ really rules it, that he has won a decisive victory over the dark powers that had mastered it, and that the manifesting of this fact is only a matter of time. God’s war with Satan is now like a chess game in which the result is sure but the losing player has not yet given up, or like the last phase of human hostilities in which the defeated enemy’s counterattacks, though fierce and frequent, cannot succeed and are embraced in the victor’s strategy as mere mopping-up operations. One wishes that our reckoning of dates “a.d.” (anno Domini, in the year of our Lord), which starts in intention (though probably a few years too late) with Jesus’ birth, had been calculated from the year of the cross, resurrection, and ascension, for that was when Jesus’ Lordship became the cosmic fact that it is today.
In a weary world in which grave philosophers
were counseling suicide as man’s best option,
the unshakable, rollicking optimism of the first
Christians, who went on feeling on top of the world
however much the world seemed to be on top of
them, made a vast impression. (It still does, when
Christians are Christian enough to show it!)
The second certainty concerns God’s Christ. It is that our reigning Lord is “interceding” for us (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25), in the sense that he appears “in the presence of God” as our “advocate” (Hebrews 9:24; 1 John 2:1) to ensure that we receive “grace to help” in our need (Hebrews 4:16) and so are kept to the end in the love of God (cf. the Good Shepherd’s pledge, John 10
:27-;29). “Interceding” denotes not a suppliant making an appeal to charity, but the intervening of one who has sovereign right and power to make requests and take action in another’s interest. It is truly said that our Lord’s presence and life in heaven as the enthroned priest-king, our propitiation, so to speak, in person, is itself his intercession: just for him to be there guarantees all grace to us, and glory too.
An eighteenth-century jingle puts this certainty into words that make the heart leap:
Love moved thee to die;
And on this I rely,
My Saviour hath loved me, I cannot tell why:
But this I can find,
We two are so joined
He’ll not be in glory and leave me behind.
The third certainty concerns God’s people. It is a matter of God-given experience as well as of God-taught understanding. It is that Christians enjoy here and now a hidden life of fellowship with the Father and the Son that nothing, not even death itself, can touch—for it is the life of the world to come begun already, the life of heaven tasted here on earth. The explanation of this experience, which all God’s people know in some measure, is that believers have actually passed through death (not as a physical but as a personal and psychic event) into the eternal life that lies beyond. “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3; cf. 2:12; Romans 6:3-;4). “God... when we were dead... made us alive together with Christ... and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4ff.).