_He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead_

SECTION 1.--HE DESCENDED INTO HELL


It is somewhat startling to find in the Creed this statement regarding
our Lord, "He descended into hell." The clause, which was one of the
latest admitted into the Creed, was derived from another creed known as
that of Aquileia, compiled in the fourth century. It does not appear in
the Nicene Creed, but it has a place in the Thirty-nine Articles of the
Church of England, where we read, "As Christ died for us, and was
buried, so also it is to be believed that He went down into Hell." The
Westminster Divines, who gave the Creed a place at the close of their
Shorter Catechism, appended a note explanatory of the clause to this
effect, "That is, continued in the state of the dead, and under the
power of death, until the third day."

The word "hell" is used in various senses in the Old Testament.
Sometimes it means the grave, sometimes the abode of departed spirits
irrespective of character, sometimes the place in which the wicked are
punished.

In the English New Testament, also, the word "hell" has not in every
place the same meaning. It represents two different nouns in the
original Greek--Gehenna and Hades. _Gehenna_ was the name of a deep,
narrow valley, bordered by precipitous rocks, in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, which had been desecrated by human sacrifices in the time of
idolatrous kings, and afterwards became the depository of city refuse
and of the offal of the temple sacrifices. The other noun, rendered by
the same English word _Hell_, is _Hades_, which means "covered,"