The One Where Jesus Goes to Hell

A Defense of the Descent

“I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.”

- The Apostles’ Creed

“[he descended into hell is] a late intruder into the Apostles’ Creed that really never belonged there in the first place and that on historical and Scriptural grounds deserves to be removed.” - Wayne Grudem

The debate over whether Jesus descended to Hell is quite contentious. Leading evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem contends that this line in the Apostles’ Creed should be removed, arguing that it was a later addition and lacks clear support from Scripture or historical evidence. But others, including myself, believe Grudem is mistaken. I hold that Jesus did, in fact, descend to Hell and that this was not just an interesting theological detail but a vital part of His redemptive mission. Since it’s Holy Week, my favorite time of year, it feels especially fitting to revisit this topic. I’ve written on the descent before, but this year I want to take a closer look at Grudem’s objections and offer a direct response. My claim here is simple: Jesus’ descent into Hades is not only attested throughout the New Testament but was also almost universally assumed by the early Church and thus important for us today.

A New Testament Theology

“So my conclusion is that there is no textual basis for believing that Christ descended into hell.” - John Piper

The central question to consider is this: on Holy Saturday, what did the authors of Scripture understand to be happening? Where did Jesus go? What did he do? For anti-descenters the answer seems straightforward—Luke 23:43 records Jesus saying to the thief on the cross (traditionally known as Dismas), “Today you will be with me in paradise.” On the surface, this appears to settle the matter: when Jesus died, he went to heaven, not Hell. But those who hold this view should do so with caution. The Greek text allows for another reading. The verse could just as plausibly be translated as, “Truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.” In this rendering, Jesus is making the promise on that day, but not necessarily saying that paradise would be reached that day. But for now, let’s put this debate aside and see if Scripture tells us anything about what happened on Holy Saturday.

The discussion of Jesus’ descent inevitably brings us into more complex territory: the biblical concepts of Hell, Hades, Sheol, and Gehenna. To simplify a bit, in the New Testament, prior to Jesus’ death, the underworld (often referred to as Hades) is portrayed as the realm of the dead, where both the righteous and the unrighteous reside. While their experiences within Hades differ, the rich man, for example, is in torment (Luke 16:22), while he can see Abraham at peace (Luke 16:23), they are nonetheless all in the same general realm: the place of the dead. But after Jesus’ death, the Saints of old are no longer in Hades. They are in the presence of God in the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22). So what happened? I think a brief survey of the New Testament will tell us.

During His ministry, Jesus was accused by the Pharisees of casting out demons by the power of Satan himself, that He was, in effect, the prince of demons. Jesus strongly refutes this accusation and rebukes them. In His response, He makes it clear that He has not come as an agent of Satan, but rather as the one who has come to overthrow him. He uses a striking image to make His point: He came to enter the “strong man’s house,” (e.g., Hell) and to bind up the strong man (e.g., Satan), and plunder his goods—ultimately to destroy his domain (Matt 12:29). Then in Acts 2, where Peter, drawing on Psalm 16, declares that God “foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption” (Acts 2:31). Some modern readers take this to mean that Jesus never went to Hades at all. But that is not what it says nor how it was understood. Rather, this verse affirms that Christ did descend to Hades—but that He was not abandoned there.

Moreover, the apostle Paul connects this descent to Christ’s atoning work in at least two key passages. In Romans 10, Paul links saving faith to a confession that encompasses Christ’s death, descent, resurrection, and ascension (Rom 10:6–7). Similarly, in Ephesians 4, Paul speaks of Christ descending “into the lower parts of the earth” before ascending to fill all things (Eph 4:9–10). In both cases, the descent is not a theological afterthought—it’s integral to the gospel story.

The most overt connection (for most scholars) to Christ’s descent is in 1 Peter 3. Peter writes:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 1 Peter 3:18–20.

It seems clear (at least to me) that Peter explicitly states Jesus died and went to a “prison” (e.g., Hell) and proclaimed the Gospel to the spirits who were disobedient in former times (likely a reference to the Nephilim of Genesis 6). In other words, according to Peter, Jesus’ redemptive work did not pause between death and resurrection. He went somewhere. He did something. Some scholars argue that these verses refer to Christ preaching through Noah in the past. But as charitably as I can put it, there’s no textual or theological basis to suggest that Peter, or anyone else in the New Testament, understood Jesus to be operating retroactively through human agents. The plain reading is that after His death, Christ descended and proclaimed victory to these imprisoned spirits. And again, in chapter 4, Peter affirms again that Christ went to the place of the dead and preached the Gospel (1 Peter 4:6).

Lastly, my personal favorite passage comes from Revelation 1. In his apocalyptic vision, John hears the risen Christ proclaim: “I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev 1:18b). Immediately after declaring Himself the First and the Last, Jesus announces He has the keys of Death and Hades. The natural question is: how did He obtain those keys? The most straightforward answer is that He didn’t just conquer death from a distance; He stepped into its domain, shattered its power, and returned with the keys in hand. He went to the Strong Man’s house—and returned as the landlord.

Let’s Review

First, the New Testament provides compelling evidence across the Gospels, the Pauline corpus, and the Catholic Epistles that when Jesus died, He truly descended to Hades—the realm of the dead. But what did He do while He was there? Two things: First, he set the captives free—those who had died in faith before the atoning work of Christ was accomplished. As Paul writes in Ephesians 4:8, referring to Psalm 68, “When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives.” This moment of liberation is powerfully echoed in Matthew’s Gospel, where, at the moment of Jesus’ death, “the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matt 27:52–53). Second, Christ proclaimed His victory. As Peter writes, “in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). Jesus didn’t descend to suffer further—He descended to announce triumph, to declare that Death had met its match (Col 2:15).

Upon closer examination, the claims made by John Piper and Wayne Grudem that there is no textual basis for the descent are not only misleading but also, in my view, incorrect. There is strong and consistent evidence for the descent scattered throughout the New Testament. I’ve read many of the counter-arguments to these interpretations, and while some are helpful in nuance or context when all of these Scriptures are taken together, the cumulative weight is hard to ignore. It becomes increasingly difficult to deny that the descent is present—woven through the arc of the New Testament narrative.

Early Christianity

“Was Christ in hell or was he not? Is not the word of the Psalms true that the apostles in their Acts interpreted about the Savior's descent to hell? It is written that Psalm 15 refers to him in the verse, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one experience corruption” (Ps 15:10). So Jesus Christ was in hell and do you fear to say that he went to prophesy there and to go to the other souls to whom he descended?” - Origen, Homilies on Samuel

To establish a doctrine meaningfully, it’s essential to consider what the early Church had to say on the matter. I don’t want to exaggerate the evidence—but in this case, it’s hard to overstate. Nearly everyone in the early Church affirmed the descent. And I mean nearly everyone: Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Hermas, Justin Martyr, Melito, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, or even later Augustine—the list goes on. Not only did they affirm that Christ descended to the dead, but many of them spoke in detail about how central this event was to His redemptive mission. Now, to be fair, they didn’t all agree on the exact nature or scope of what happened during the descent. But they were unified in this: Christ truly descended to the realm of the dead—and in doing so, He accomplished something of profound saving significance. When we consider the breadth of New Testament witness alongside the near-unanimous testimony of the early Church, it becomes clear that the descent was not a fringe idea; it was something early followers of Jesus simply assumed. It was woven into their understanding of who Christ is and what He accomplished between the cross and the empty tomb.

Now let’s consider Grudem’s claim that the phrase “He descended to hell” was a later addition to the Apostles’ Creed. It’s true that the Creed wasn’t drafted in a single moment or at a specific council; rather, it gradually took shape between roughly 200 and 650 CE. Grudem’s central argument is that since the phrase appears only sporadically in early versions of the Creed, it must not have been a core doctrine, and was mistakenly added later on. But this conclusion doesn’t hold up. While it’s true the exact phrase doesn’t appear consistently in the earliest forms, the idea of the descent was already present. In fact, many early Christians understood the phrase “He was buried”—which appears in nearly every version of the Creed—as implicitly affirming the descent. In other words, the descent wasn’t tacked on; it was embedded in the Church’s confession from the beginning, even if the language evolved over time. I like how Mike Bird puts it (it’s lengthy but worth it):

Some versions omitted the reference to a descent (e.g., the Roman baptismal formula according to Rufinus), while others versions omitted the reference to burial (e.g., the Athanasian Creed). The reason for the elasticity of wording is that a burial implies a descent, and the descent presupposes burial. So omission is not necessarily denial! In any case, the received form of the Apostles’ Creed, going back to the Frankish missionary Pirminius, as used in both Catholic and Protestant churches, definitely includes a reference to Christ’s descent. (Bird, What Christians Ought to Believe: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine Through the Apostles’ Creed, 148).

For these reasons, I would contend that the doctrine of the descent was present from the beginning to the end of the Apostles’ Creed’s formation. Even if one were to argue that the exact phrase wasn’t included early on (though I believe it was), the point remains: if Scripture attests to the descent, and the early Church was devoted to it, then whether or not it appeared in every version of the Creed becomes somewhat irrelevant. Still, the historical record shows that the descent was consistently implied, if not explicitly stated, and therefore, in every place, Grudem seeks to deny its presence, I would argue it is, in fact, affirmed.

The End of the End

When I first became a Christian, I didn’t believe the descent was biblical. It seemed like a later invention, more tradition than truth. But over time, through thoughtful friends (especially

Chris Nye

) and careful study of Scripture and the early Church, my view changed. What I’ve tried to show here is exactly why.

But more than just the evidence, the descent matters because it deepens our understanding of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus Christ died on the Cross, accomplishing His atoning work. Then He descended into Hades—not as a victim, but as a victor. He gathered the expectant saints of old, stood before the gates of Death, Satan, and all the powers of darkness, and declared, “You will not prevail.”

I’ll close with the words of the great scholar Charles E. Hill:

Christ descended into Hades so that you and I would not have to. Christ descended to Hades so that we might ascend to heaven. Christ entered the realm of death, the realm of the strong enemy, and came away with his keys.