Did Jesus Go to Hell?

“He Descended Into Hell”

It should read, “He descended into Hades.” We have a similar necessary correction in Acts 2:27 which is a quotation of Psalm 16:10. In the Authorized Version that is cited in the form: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,” but the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible both have correctly: “Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades,” and Moffatt in his translation simply uses the word “the grave.”

The word in Hebrew is Sheol: and Sheol is not hell; Sheol is simply the land of the dead. The Jews had no full doctrine of immortality of a life after death. The believed that the souls of all men, or rather men themselves, went to Sheol which was a grey, shadowy land, in which men moved like ghosts, in which there was neither light, nor color, nor joy, and in which the shades of men were separated alike from God and from their fellow-men. Sheol is simply the place of the dead, with none of the connotation of torture and punishment which the word hell includes.

… The Greeks had the same idea, and Hades in Greek was also the place of the dead. To be quite accurate, it is likely that Hades was not originally a place but a person, for the original phrase is “the House of Hades,” and certainly in the Revelation Hades is a person. [Revelation 6:8, 20:13, 20:14]. Hades was the king of the dead and it was to his shadowy house all men went.

When the New Testament wishes to express the place of punishment it uses the word Gehenna. It is better to lose your hand or eye than with your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna (Matthew5:29-30). It is not necessary to fear those who can kill the body; it is necessary to fear him who can cast soul and body into Gehenna (Matthew 10:28).

Now Gehenna is Ge Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. It was in that valley that in the ancient days those who worshipped Moloch the fire-god had burned their children in the fire as an offering to him. Josiah had stopped that impious worship and had made the Valley of Hinnom desecrated territory (2 Kings 23:10). It had then become the official rubbish dump, the public incinerator of Jerusalem. It smouldered continuously, and in it a loathsome species of worm bred and multiplied. That terrible valley, a kind of valley of destruction, stood as the popular idea of hell..

The two words are quite distinct. Sheol is simply the place of the dead. Gehenna is the place of the punishment of he wicked. Sheol is not hell, but Gehenna is.

This sentence of the creed therefore had originally nothing to do with hell. It simply meant that Jesus went to the place of the dead. In other words, it was merely another and vivid way of saying again that he was really and truly dead. 

The Apostles’ Creed for Everyman, by William Barclay, pg.121-122

So, yes, Jesus descended into the grave, but “NO” he didn’t descend into hell.  Numerous Word of Faith teachers use this statement from the Apostles’ Creed (and the Athanasian Creed) to promote their teachings that Jesus went to Hell, and was abused by the demons there, to pay for our sins. This, of course, is nothing less than rank heresy.  If these creeds were properly translated, the WOF gang would have nothing to hang their heresy on!

Bible passages which support the idea that Jesus descended to the grave and not hell:

Acts 2:27, citing Psalm 16:10.

Romans 10:6-7 (the abyss/pit is another name for Sheol)

Ephesians 4:8-10 (referring to Psalm 68:18)

Philippians 2:9-11 (“under the earth”)

1 Peter 3:18-20 with 1 Peter 4:6

Revelation 5:13 (“under the earth”)

By the way, demons do not live in Hell, nor does Satan.