Did Christ descend into Hell? | Listen to Tool Talk Episode 4! Share on X

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Grounded in the Faith: A Guide for New Disciples Based on the Apostles’ Creed

• This discipleship guide from Fontes Press is based on the Apostles’ Creed and designed to be used as a guide for one-on-one discipleship or small group studies.

HEARD IN THIS EPISODE:

0:32 – Some funny small talk, in which we learn Todd’s middle name, and in which Travis tells a Greek “dad joke” and butchers a funny story.

6:32 – Why are so many evangelicals wary of the use of creeds?

7:47 – Is there a “middle way” between “lifeless” repetition and “passionate” worship?

12:04 – “You don’t have to necessarily adopt [a particular liturgy] if your tradition doesn’t already include that, but you don’t have to chuck out all of this fantastic material that binds us to the rest of the Church and reminds us of our common heritage, and helps us… put the spotlight on Scripture.” – Travis

12:28 – What’s up with the “descent clause” of the Apostles’ Creed?

16:50 – Do the Scriptures support the idea that Christ “descended into hell”?

17:57 – “[Jesus has] now gone to the lowest parts of creation and the uppermost parts of creation in ‘the heavenlies,’ and He’s demonstrated His sovereignty over both realms. In the underworld, through His resurrection, He proclaimed His victory over death. He demonstrated that the grave could not hold Him. After the ascension, He’s now got His enemies under His feet, in fulfillment of the Psalm [68].” – Todd

In the underworld, through His resurrection, Jesus proclaimed His victory over death. Share on X

19:02 – “[Christ’s descent into the underworld] is a Biblical idea. It’s not just an extrabiblical, creedal idea that some weird, ancient fathers threw in there. It’s a Biblical idea that actually bears itself out through exegesis, and the fathers themselves, prior to this entering the [Apostles’] Creed, all, pretty much universally, believed that Christ had descended into the underworld after His death.” – Todd

19:50 – If the English word “Hell” doesn’t best identify “the lower parts of the earth” to which Christ went after His death, then how should we think of it?

24:34 – When we use the creeds, “we want to better understand what the earliest Christians believed the Scriptures meant, not elevating that tradition to the level of Scripture, but using it to get at Scripture. These are exegetical tools that we can use, and the creeds are themselves exegetical tools.” – Travis

The creeds are exegetical tools that tell us how the earliest Christians understood Scripture. Share on X