the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, 'He
descended into hell'"[120] What the Westminster Divines meant was, that
while Christ's body was laid in the grave His spirit passed from the
visible to the invisible world, that, as He shared the common lot of men
in the death and burial of His body, so He shared their common lot in
passing as a spirit into the abode of spirits. The statement of this
clause follows naturally what is said of the body of Jesus in that which
precedes it. As His body was crucified, dead, and buried, so His spirit
passed into the abode of spirits. "In all things it behoved him to be
made like unto His brethren."[121]

Those who maintain that the spirit of Christ descended into hell in a
sense peculiar to Himself, ground their opinion upon certain passages of
Scripture. Psalm xvi. 10--"Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt
thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption"--is quoted in support of
this opinion, but does not really justify it. It expresses the
confidence of the speaker, that God will not deliver His soul to the
power of Sheol (the Hebrew word equivalent to the Greek Hades), or
suffer His body to see corruption, and in this sense the passage is
quoted by Peter, as a proof from prophecy of the resurrection of Christ.
Ephesians iv. 9 is also regarded as giving sanction to this view--"Now
that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the
lower parts of the earth?" By the "lower parts of the earth" some
understand parts lower than the earth, but such a view rests on a
strained interpretation of the passage. Paul's argument is that ascent
to heaven must have been made by one who, before ascending, was below.
Christ had come down from heaven to earth, and was below therefore, he
argues, Christ is the subject of the prophecy he has quoted. He it was
that hid ascended up on high, not the Father, who is everywhere.[122]