Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton ministries with Doctor Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

Father, We ask now that the words of my mouth, the meditations of our hearts, would be acceptable in your sight, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. It is called the ad infernos, the descent of Jesus into hell. You don’t hear much today about hell, let alone Jesus descent into that place. There are some who would say, surely this is a new doctrine. This is something that has been newly discovered. But really the contrary is true. If you were to go back and flip the pages of church history, you will find on that first page in that first generation of the Church of Jesus Christ after his resurrection, that with one voice, the church believed that Jesus Christ descended into hell. And this is one of the teachings that the entire Christian church has been in agreement on.

Whether you go to the Eastern Orthodox Church, they believed that after Jesus death on the cross, he spent three days in hell, and on the third day he was risen from the dead. The Roman Catholic Church believes the same. The Lutheran Church believes it. All of the reformed churches believed it. And as a matter of fact, churches throughout the century and the apostles Creed declared that they believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. You might say, well, I been in churches, and when they repeat the apostles Creed, they don’t say that. And this is true. There are some churches and denominations that have removed that phrase from the apostles Creed. And so it is not declared in the public gathering of the church.

But I think it is important for us to realize that we did not put it in. They have taken it out because the item of the descent of Jesus into hell is found in the placing together of the beliefs of the early church. And part of the statement, the descent of Jesus into hell was recorded in 390 ad in the church of Aquileia as all of the statements that were coming together to form the apostles Creed. And one of those statements, Jesus descended into hell, was to be found in that earliest germination of that creed. But I’m afraid there are not only those who don’t mention that in their statement of faith in the apostles Creed, but there are some churches that just don’t even mention hell at all, let alone the descent of Jesus to that place.

Well, in some ways it is important, and in other ways it is not important. What church history tells us. What for us is more important? What does the Bible tell us. And when we look at the scriptures, we find that there in fact are many references to the descent of Jesus into hell. One in the Old Testament, in the Book of Job, chapter 30 817, have the gates of death, God asks of job, been revealed to you? Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death? That God himself has seen those doors, that God himself has had the shadow of death been presented to his eyes? But there are some who say, why. That is a vague scripture. Well, then we turn to the words of Jesus.

Jesus, in talking about a sign, says, there will be no sign given to this generation except that the son of man will spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And so Jesus affirmed that he would face death as any man would face death, and come face to face with death. In the book of acts, chapter two, verses 30 and 31, we read this, that God had sworn with an oath to Christ, that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. Foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. Our text from the book of Ephesians tells us when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.

Now this he ascended. What does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? And in the book of one, Peter, chapter three, verse 18, Christ, being put to death in the flesh, was made alive by the spirit, by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison. Now, admittedly the subject of hell and Christ’s going to that place is an admittedly hard teaching, is one that is easier to slip over and to not point the light of God’s word. And I would rather spend my time teaching you about heaven and grace and faith. But if I would take my vocation and my calling seriously, and I must also, along with the blessedness of heaven, talk to you about the agony of and that Christ went to that place of hell.

Now, in order to understand where Jesus was for three days from the time that he died on the cross and said it is finished, until the time that he rose again for three days he was dead. And the scriptures teach that he visited spirits who were in prison, we are told that he preached to those who were in hell, Hades. Now this is a place of great importance for us to understand, because in the Bible there are three words that are used to describe the place that we have but one word to describe. We use the word hell, but in the Greek, there are three words to describe that place. The first is found in the word Sheol. Sheol is used 31 times in the Old Testament, and she.

Sheol is that place, according to Jewish tradition, was where everyone who died, whether they were good or evil, went to this place called Sheol. Now, in the New Testament, the equivalent of the word Sheol is the word Hades. Hades is used ten times in the New Testament. It has exactly the same meaning as the word Sheol. And it was believed in the Jewish teaching that Sheol or Hades was the place where anyone in the Old Testament who died went to this place. And in Sheol or Hades, it was believed there were two compartments, one for those who were unrighteous, who never trusted in the living God as revealed in the Old Testament. And this other compartment of Sheol or Hades was where those who were righteous and who were longing to see the coming Messiah state.

Now, the word Sheol or Hades never has a meaning of a place of torment. It is simply a holding place. So then you ask, where did the idea of a hell that burns forever the eternal fire come from? Well, it comes from the third word that is found in the scripture, and that word is Gehenna. Gehenna occurs eleven times in the New Testament. Ten of the eleven times that the word is used come from the lips of Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke more about hell than he spoke about heaven. Jesus spoke with clarity, where in the Old Testament we have just simply the Sheol or hades with two compartments, Jesus spoke with clarity as to the Gehenna fire. And anyone who would have difficulty with the idea of an everlasting hell must have difficulty with the words of Jesus, because it was from his lips.

Jesus who spoke the beautiful sermon on the mount. Jesus spoke about a place of everlasting torment. It was Jesus who said, whosoever says, you, fool, shall be liable to the Gehenna hell of fire. It was Jesus who said that hell is a place that is of such severe agony and misery and sorrow that it would better if you cut off your hand or cut off your foot, or plucked out your eye to go into that place of everlasting torment with all of our limbs. It was Jesus who referred to the Gehenna hell as a place of outer darkness, a place where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Was Jesus who said that the Gehenna hellfire can never be quenched.

Was Jesus, in referring to the ghosts who would not trust in him, said that they are to depart from me, ye cursed to go to that place that has been prepared with an eternal fire for the devil and all of his angels. It is, Jesus teaches us about the torment of hell. One thing is very clear. The Bible teaches that there is a hell that will consume forever, where the worm eightieth not, and the fire shall never be quenched. It is clear that Jesus Christ warns us to live a life, to put our trust in Jesus Christ, that we might never have to face that eternal torment. John Bunyan wrote an interesting pamphlet. It’s called visions of heaven and hell. He talks about a man that he meets in hell, a lost soul who wanders in this place of torment.

The man says, this is a place of misery and of sorrow. It is a place where I have lost all hope of ever escaping. It is a place where the love of God is absent and where his all consuming wrath is present. It is a place, he said, where my eyes are tormented by the sight of hideous demons. It is a place where my ears are benumbed with noise and confusion and a cacophony of chaos. It is a place where my nose continually breathes the sulphurous fumes. It is a place where my tongue is blistered. Oh, who will bring me from this place? He cries. There is no escape.

And any Christian who would live their life without seeing the vision of an endless hell, a hell that is to be shunned, a hell should cause us to be frightened, not only for ourselves, but for those whom we claim that we love, that we would seek to tell them, to warn them that this life, with all of its wine glasses and movies, with all of the luxury that we enjoy, with the type of dream that we’re living in, that there is coming a day when we will stand before God. And either we have placed our trust in Jesus Christ in this life, we’ll be brought to that place of paradise, or we will be exiled, that place of darkness.

And any Christian would say, I have no time to tell my friend, my neighbor, the person I work with, about the claims of Christ, has no business to bear the name of Christ. For this is a battle, a spiritual battle, where lives are at stake. It is not a fantasy. It is not a joke. The words of Jesus. There is a Gehenna fire. There are some who look to the phrases and the experiences of those who have died and then been resuscitated to life. And we really don’t know what to make of these medically. Doctor Rawlings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was concerned because he was reading the accounts of people who had near death experiences. And he saw in the early books that came out that they only talked about a beautiful light and all warmth.

And he experienced in his office dozens of people who died in his presence. There was one particular man by the name of Thomas Welch. Welch was an engineer. He worked on a trestle, and he tells this story. I was working on the trestle. There were some timbers, and I fell off the trestle and tumbled down. I landed on my head, and then I hit a beam 30ft below, and then my body hit the water. There were 75 men working at the mill that day. The mill immediately shut down, and everyone tried to find my body. They looked for an hour before my body was recovered. But in that hour, I shall never forget what I saw. For the next thing I knew, I was standing near a shoreline of a great ocean of fire. It was a lake that seemed to endlessly burn.

It was the most awesome sight I have ever seen. I remember more clearly than any other thing that has ever happened to me in my lifetime, every detail of that moment. What I saw and what happened during that hour when I was gone from this world. I was standing some distance from this burning, turbulent, rolling mass of blue fire. As far as my eyes could see, it was just the. A lake of fire and brimstone. There was nobody in it. I was not in it. I saw other people whom I had known that had died when I was a young boy. They were not in it. We recognized each other even though we did not speak. They too were looking and seemed to be perplexed and in deep thought, as though they could not believe what they saw.

The scene was so awesome that words simply fail. There is no way to describe except to say that I was an eyewitness of the judgment of Christ. There was no way to escape, no way out. You don’t even try to look for one. This is the prison from which there is no escape. As these thoughts raced through my mind, I saw another man coming in front of us. I knew immediately who he was. He was strong, kind, compassionate. He was composed and unafraid. He seemed the master of all that he surveyed. It was Jesus. A great hope took hold of me. I knew the answer to my problem was this great and wonderful person who was moving by me in this prison of the lost. Did not do anything to attract his attention.

I said to myself, if he would only look my way and see me, he’d rescue me from this terrible place he passed on by. It seemed as though he would look away. Just before he passed, turned his head and looked at me, and that is all it took. That one look was enough, and Welsh came back to life. Never forgetting that vision of hell, Welch became a Christian and made it his business to tell others about Christ, the heaven that is to be ours and the hell that is to be spurned. The phrase that Jesus descended into hell has three historical meanings. The first two are on the periphery. It is not until we get to the third that we come to a true understanding of what his descent into hell means.

The first understanding of Jesus descent into hell was that Christ died and went to the place where all dead people, dead souls went, and that like any other man, Jesus went to that place of Sheol or Hades. And that is true. But the second meaning has to do with Jesus going to Hades or Sheol and preaching to those who were righteous, to those who were waiting for the coming messiah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all of those who were blessed by the Lord. And now Jesus comes as the great victor, to pronounce to them the gospel that they would know in fullness the promise of Christ, and that he would retrieve those captives and take them captive and bring them to heaven. Psalm 24 familiar psalm phrase lift up your heads, o ye gates. Be lifted up, you everlasting doors.

Question what gates were being lifted up and what doors. Those who have studied this psalm believe that it is referring to the gates of hell, that the gates of hell were opened, that the gates of Hades, of shield, were broken open as Jesus Christ entered to proclaim to the captive the good news of his death on the cross, and that he took all of those who were in Sheol, and he brought them who were captive to be with him in heaven. Lift up your heads, o ye gates. Be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. Who is the king of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the king of glory.

But the third and I think most clear understanding of the descent of Jesus into hell is for us to understand the agony that Christ endured on the cross, that on the cross of Christ, there he endured all of the sin of the world and the wrath of God upon that sin. And in that agony, he cried out, Father, why have you forsaken me? They say that before you die, you have a glimpse of your life very quickly, and all of the things that you have done quickly pass before your eye. And I can imagine in that moment as Jesus was hanging suspended upon the cross, that in his mind’s eye he must have seen from Adam that first sin as sin, the sin of mankind, would come to his memory.

Every word of sin, every action, each act of uncleanness, each word gossip and malice, each murder, each act of envy, each act of pride, each act that was the sin of man. As Christ in agony, remembered the sins of the world and then cried, it is finished. Jesus Christ descended into hell. He faced the agony of our sin. He faced all of the wrath of God, the sins that you and I have committed and the sins of mankind. And when we say that I believe that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell that we would remember afresh that Christ has endured for us the penalty of our sin. For there is a wage that is paid for sin. What are the wages? Death for sin does not pay high dividends. Christ endured on the cross consequence for your sin and mine.

Jesus Christ, who descended into hell, that you and I, by putting our trust in him, might ascend with him into heaven. Let us pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you that Jesus Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth. That he proclaimed the good news to the prisoners who were held. The gates were open. The door was open as Jesus the victor entered hades. Bring those who were captive in that place to be his captives as he brought them to heaven. Lord, we ask that you would help us this day by faith to trust more in Christ and less in ourselves, that we might know our own forgiveness of sins and the assurance that he has prepared a place for us. We thank you for Jesus, his descent to that place, and his ascension to be at your right hand. We thank you for him. In Jesus name, amen.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listeners. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org or send your donation to Princeton Ministries Post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey, 08543. That’s Princeton Ministries Post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey, 08543. The Lord bless you and Doctor Smith looks forward to hearing from you