[HOTL's Got Questions] Did Jesus Go to Hell?

Cyle, Ryan, and Mark tackle one of theology's more provocative questions: Did Jesus actually descend into Hell between His death and resurrection? The guys unpack where this idea comes from — including the Apostles' Creed — and dig into the often-misunderstood biblical concepts of Sheol, Hades, Abraham's bosom, and the lake of fire. Spoiler: the answer is more nuanced (and more fascinating) than most people think. Tune in for a lively conversation about the invisible realm, the complexity of the afterlife, and why your understanding of heaven and hell might be more influenced by movies than Scripture.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, welcome back to Hoddle's Got Questions. I'm Kyle.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I'm Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

And Mark's over there. He's doing his thing. We got a question. Here's the question. Ready for this? Did Jesus go to hell? Sure. Sir? What do you think? What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

I think we should add context to this question.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

People bel some people believe that the three days that Jesus that was dead, he descended into hell, because there's a Bible verse that says he descended into hell. And so they went, he went to hell between death and resurrection. What do you and that comes from I'll get to the verse. So it's we'll have to find the verse for you.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yeah, four choices.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I always assumed as such. Because like he paid for our sins, and the wages of sin is well it says the wages of sin are death. Right. And I always assumed that it meant he went to hell. But somebody was like, Are you sure about that? And I'm like, I thought I was sure. And now you're asking that question, and now I'm I was not as sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Um so the where we get that from is the apostles' creed. So the apostles' creed is not in the Bible. The Apostles' Creed is something that has been shared for let me see if I can find you Apostles' Creed. Apostles' Creed is this It says, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen. So that's the Apostles' Creed. That is the Catholic Church, there means the universal church. The word Catholic just means universal. And so this is like a creed from early on, about 150 years after Jesus died. Um and so actually after all the apostles had died, so probably more like 200 and some years after Jesus had died. This we find this creed. So this is a creed that was shared in the early church. So this is where people get the idea that Jesus went to hell. And there's lots of movies made about this stuff, like this stuff here. So the the problem is it goes to just bad understanding of like the Bible. And there's there's verses in Psalms, like there's modern translations will translate things as hell, they're not hell. Like in Psalms, let me see if I can find in Psalms 16, 10 through 11, it says, uh, for thou, uh, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell from the King James Version. So back in the 1600s, they they translated that as hell, but it wasn't hell. So in the Old Testament, they believed that that the realm of the dead was called Sheol. So in Psalms, it actually would be, you know, your soul will be with me in Sheol, not hell. It's not the same thing. In the New Testament times, it was a Greco-Roman world which believed in Hades as the realm of the dead. So Hades was the realm of the dead in that time. Sheol was this Jewish understanding of where you go, where the realm of the dead is. And so when the Bible talks about the afterlife, there's actually the Abraham's bosom, is like the place of blessing in the afterlife. And then you have the lake of fire, which is the place of like damnation and torment. So they're actually there, I think we we in our minds picture these different realms being different places. There's one realm of the dead, and in that there's place of the blessing, and there's place of torment. So, like, and then there are people that believe, scholars that believe part of that place of blessing is what we have as heaven, because it's not this little tiny place, it's a realm of existence in the universe, which is the universe is massive. So we have this limited scope, we kind of put it in this kind of pretty picture that we can have in like cartoons and movies, and um, but it's actually much more involved and massive than that. So when when the Bible says that Jesus descended into hell, well, when when people interpolate that from some scriptures, Jesus actually um there there are people who believe that Jesus actually went into Sheol and took some of those souls and moved them to another place of waiting, like is what we would consider more like the heaven, Abraham's bosom, and not actually hell, the lake of fire, like a tormented place. So there's this this is scholarship issue versus this understanding issue versus this translation where translators try to translate something that makes sense. No, no modern person knows what she's all is. If I if I said to like Nick, who's filming right now, Nick, do you know what Sheol is? He'd probably be like, huh? What's Sheol? Because we don't we don't talk about it, it's not part of our culture, it's not part of our context. That was culture pre-Greco-Roman civilization of the realm of the dead. And so that understanding has been confusing. We see what is Abraham's bosom, if you ask people that, they might be able to figure out what that is, but that they don't know. So our concept of heaven and hell is based on like modern world's understanding of kind of where it's come through time and how we've kind of um put it in movies and media. So we, you know, you see all these movies that show you hell, so you think that's what hell is. You see all these movies that talk about heaven, you know, it's pearly gates and angels with wings, and it's not really what it looks like in description either. So that's the difference between if Jesus went into the realm of the dead for three days uh and he took souls to another place, it didn't necessarily mean he descended into hell, Hades, uh, and even Hades in the lake of fire would be two different places in the place of torment, like in the negative side. So it's not a universal thing. And so scholars don't always agree on this thing, scholars fight about it, pastors don't always agree about it, they kind of argue and debate about it. So, Ryan, now hearing all that what do you think about it?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, that's a lot. Um, no, I mean I I think that maybe in in my you know understanding of it, I I kind of I kind of got it somewhat like the definitely I'm more of an encyclopedia. Right. Um, you know, I mean I'm more like a like a one little three sentences on all that in my mind, but yeah, I mean I kind of get that, right? Like he he he he he dies, he goes to Sheol or Sheol or whatever you say, and but to bring some people back, right? Because the the pre-Jesus people, right? I mean, that's kind of my understanding. Now, knowing that that now it's one big realm, I kind of thought it was all kind of the same.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Kind of the Bible talks about the visible realm and the invisible realm in Colossians. Like the invisible realm is the invisible realm, and in that invisible realm, we don't always understand how it happens, but that is where heaven and hell exist, that's where the angels exist, that's where God exists, like we don't see them in the visible. Um, and so we we God is in both, but we don't see God visibly in this realm unless He chooses to show Himself to us. So when it comes down to it, it's way more complex than we think it is.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

That's what I'm thinking. Like the the like articulating it, right? Like being able to articulate it.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Yeah, so it's the understanding that like Abraham, Moses, David, all of them were in Sheol with the people that didn't believe until Jesus came down. Like they didn't go straight to being with God right away.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

They were in the same well, when Jesus tells the thief on the cross, you will be with me today in paradise. He didn't say you'll be with me today in Sheol, right? He said paradise. So like paradise is obviously part of Sheol. So isn't Hades, so isn't the lake of fire, you know. So we have to think of we don't understand the complexity of it. It's complex. Yeah, I don't know. We could get to heaven and be totally wrong about it, but like it's way more complex than we think. It's not like it's like one location. So think of it the sense of continents. Just because I'm on Earth doesn't mean I'm in Europe, right? Um, so like, you know, or Africa, like there's these different locations within the realm of our existence. So um, just because you know, I'm in the milk, the what is it was our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, doesn't mean I'm on Earth, right? I could be on Mars, it could be somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

So I guess for me, I thought they were two different realms entirely, is like their minds say that.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

The realm of the dead is how the Bible talks about it. So what does that look like? I mean, you can see in the story of Lazarus, right, in scripture, he can see out of heaven and he can see into hell. Well, they can't be different places, you know, it can't be different realms to see, you know. So he can actually, you know, they want him to dip his finger in water and just touch their tongues because like they're being tormented. So the Bible has all these descriptions which you just have to try to figure out. And the point is, it doesn't matter if you fathom it or not. All you need to know is there is a there is a place of blessing called heaven, and there is a place of torment called hell. You don't want to go to one, you want to go the other one. Um, you know, I think it's the book of Jude that talks about the souls that are that are waiting um judgment from the old old days. Um and so like some scholars believe that Jesus went when he descended into Hades, not Hades, when he ascended in Sheol, he went into the realm of the dead and he took the souls that were waiting and he moved them to a place, a blessing waiting for judgment, like the faithful ones, uh, until the final judgment. What we don't know, and this we'll do another podcast on this, but when do we get judged? Do you does Jesus judge you the moment you die? Or do do all souls get judged at the same time? That's a whole nother podcast episode, like we talk about. Like, do you do you go to a place of waiting in like Sheol, waiting for a place of waiting for the time of judgment? And that probably would be like instantaneous for us in the timeline of it all for us, but it might not be instantaneous in the actual timeline of existence. So uh I think it's fascinating to think about those things. There's is there a right or wrong answer? Yes, there's definitely a right answer that God has, but I don't think we ever will really know what the right answer is. I think we just kind of presuppose. But when people tell me that Jesus descended into hell, what they're trying to envision that Jesus just descends with his you know angelic white presence, and he's like glowing and he descends into hell and he's battling demons, and like you know, that's that's movies. That's not that's not we don't see that in scripture. We don't see that as a the thing. Although that'd be really cool. Yeah, like Gandalf fighting the ballrog when I think of what I think of Jesus. But so I hope that answers your question. I mean, that's a little bit more about it. Uh we presuppose it, ask more questions. If you want us to go deeper in this topic, we can. But um, yeah, did Jesus go to hell? Not the hell that you are thinking. Jesus went to Sheol, uh, yes, definitely the realm of the dead. Um, what exactly he did, we don't know. But yeah, God knows. Thanks for listening.