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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
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"He descended into Hell (or Sheol)" is trickier, to be honest.

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Interestingly enough, Grudem has a problem with that line too.

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And so do I. When taking part in a service which includes a recitation of the Apostles' Creed (and I'm very wide-ranging in the kinds of services I join in) I omit that phrase. I do take care to think about the words that I'm led into saying during liturgical services.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Of all the lines in either Nicene or Apostles, that's the one that's hardest for evangelicals. Because, it's only tenuously supported by Scripture, and some of those supporting verses are among the most difficult to interpret. Even worse, it's a line that relates to an understanding of death most evangelicals don't share. Generally evangelicals will believe either that on death we are judged or we are unconscious and unaware until awakened for judgement at the Second Coming, and from there to Heaven or Hell with Hell being either a place of eternal torment in punishment for sins or oblivion. A Sheol where the dead wait around for judgement is something alien, with shades of that Purgatory nonsense that we Protestants rid ourselves of at the Reformation.

The times I've been at churches using the Apostles Creed generally the phrase has been translated to "he descended to the dead", which most can say as just a poetic statement "he was really, truly, totally dead". But, it is a phrase that many would read as saying something much more than that. I don't even know the circumstances of what was going on in the Church that caused that phrase to be included, what heresy were people falling into that needed a statement that Christ descended to Sheol to counter?

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
He certainly descended in to Hell. The grave. He certainly didn't harrow it. That's an absurdly entity proliferating misinterpretation. And not in the Nicene or Constantinopolitan creeds. Nor is any wild, mandatory extrapolation of the church beyond militant and metaphoric.

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Originally posted by Enoch:
I'd see myself as moderately evangelical in the English and CofE sense of the word rather than the American one, but I have to admit I'm puzzled by this questioning of the descent into hell. I haven't really picked this one up before.

Is it because there isn't enough mention of it in scripture (one, I think, but a fairly clear one) so that people feel it's a more optional belief, rather than one to be insisted upon, even if the vast majority of us do actually accept it? Or is there a significant constituency who think it's actually wrong?

It strikes me as fairly obvious that when Jesus died, as Son of Man, he went where we all go when we die, but as Son of God, the grave could not hold him. He harrowed hell, rose from the dead and led captivity captive. When light came into the ultimate place of darkness, the darkness could not 'comprehend' (in it's literal sense) it. What's the problem?

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
He told the thief on the cross that thy would be together in paradise that very day.

Oh, and is seems to suggest that Jesus' saving work began before his resurrection thus driving a wedge between the cross and the resurrection and, implicitly, downplaying the soteriological significance of the resurrection.

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Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The resurrection, though, is the breaking of the power of death and hell. It is the moment of triumph, it is not the battle.

Using Christ's words to the thief to argue against the harrowing of hell implies that Jesus went for a quick jaunt to heaven between the crucifixion and resurrection which is a... pretty bizarre take.

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm not necessarily advocating the position. I'm just stating it out of interest in the conversation. It may be that Christ proclaimed his victory in hell "that day" and entered paradise. I don't think it's at all weird to think that Jesus went to heaven between his death and resurrection.

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Originally posted by ken:
Eh? God the Son's saving work began before creation. That's as evangelical a doctrine as you like. Fully biblical.

Jesus's saving work on earth, (insofar as we can think of Jesus apart from God the Son, being good Chalcedonians) begins at his conception and birth. "For unto you is born this day a saviour, which is Christ the Lord". The baby Jesus was a worthy object of worship, before he had done anything yet. The angels sang it, so it must be true

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'd have thought that a good Calvinist like your good self, daronmedway, would emphasise that Christ's soteriological work started way before the crucifixion, way before the Incarnation even ... 'the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth.'

It's all there in eternity, before Abraham was I am and so on ... before anything that has been made was made ...

I agree with you and the other reformed, Reformed and evangelical or Evangelical posters on this thread that the cross should be central ... but it's not the cross in isolation.

The 'Christ event' encompasses the whole thing, as I'm sure we'd all agree - his pre-existence as the eternal Word, his glorious Incarnation, his life, ministry, teachings, his passion, death and resurrection, his ascension and seating at the right-hand of God the Father, his coming again in glory ...

It doesn't do to fillet out any of these things from the whole, whether the crucifixion, resurrection, the moral teachings or anything else - it's all of a piece.

But you knew that already.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
My take on "descended to the dead" may be unorthodox! The harrowing of Hell understanding, however "true" or "mythological" it might be, may point to a significant truth. The love of God which is seen in Christ Jesus our Lord and demonstrated on the cross, transcends both time and the flow of time.

I think folks may have been wrestling with the eternal fate of those born before the crucifixion, before the proclamation of the gospel in post-resurrection time. The BC dimension, if you like. The notion of a rescue mission may fit in with that. The light shone not just on those who walked in darkness but were imprisoned in it.

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Originally posted by chris stiles:
That was also my first thought when thinking about this topic a few years ago.

Plus - if you want to build a theology around edge cases - take this together with the parable on Lazarus, and you get the idea that everyone is in Sheol at the moment, with some in the good bit (Paradise) and some in the other bit.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
As I have explained many times here, the harrowing of hell is just bad hermeneutics based on Peter's arcane style.

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Originally posted by ken:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Oh, and it seems to suggest that Jesus' saving work began before his resurrection thus driving a wedge between the cross and the resurrection and, implicitly, downplaying the soteriological significance of the resurrection.

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Eh? God the Son's saving work began before creation. That's as evangelical a doctrine as you like. Fully biblical.

Jesus's saving work on earth, (insofar as we can think of Jesus apart from God the Son, being good Chalcedonians) begins at his conception and birth. "For unto you is born this day a saviour, which is Christ the Lord". The baby Jesus was a worthy object of worship, before he had done anything yet. The angels sang it, so it must be true

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22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness”. 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

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In this sense, ISTM, that the objective reality of atonement for sin and justification by faith require a crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. This seems to cast a question mark over the harrowing of hell, unless I'm missing something of course.

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I don't see why it should, necessarily. I don't pretend to understand the more medieval ideas of the 'harrowing of Hell' but it seems to me that the way the iconography - of both East and West - has it, those who are retrospectively redeemed - as it were - by Christ's passion and resurrection - are waiting to be let out of prison at the appointed time.

I saw some terrific frescoes in Florence on this theme back in the summer. The OT saints and Patriarchs were gleefully streaming out of their underground prisons whilst the demons cowered behind rocks and pillars with their hands over their mouths, shocked.

Then there's the wonderful Fr Angelico depiction in San Marco where Christ appears to burst through the prison door and a demon lies squashed beneath it ...

It's the symbolism of the whole thing ... I don't exercised about the 'literalness' of it. I don't imagine real underground chambers and dungeons, real doors any more than you do.

http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBR&Volume=19&Issue=3&ArticleID=16

[code hell]

[ 21. December 2013, 17:14: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
And, of course, in the traditional view of the 'harrowing of hell', Christ descends to the grave/sheol/hell etc in between his death and resurrection ... it's his resurrection that makes the whole thing possible just as it does in any other handling/understanding of the Christ event.

I don't see the problem.

Christ didn't descend into Hell and remain there.

It seems to be that there's no disconnection between Christ's death on the cross and the resurrection in the traditional understanding of the Harrowing of Hell at all. They are two sides of the same coin.

I don't see the problem.

Unless I'm missing something of course ...
 

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Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
ISTM, that the objective reality of atonement for sin and justification by faith require a crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. This seems to cast a question mark over the harrowing of hell, unless I'm missing something of course.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sheol is quite different to Hell. The Sheol or 'the grave' that the Israelites believed in was not a place of pain and torment, but silence and sleep. Everybody went there, righteous and unrighteous - we know from the OT that David goes there when he dies. When I read 'He descended to the dead' in the Creed, this is where I think Christ went, and after His resurrection no longer exists. I do not believe in a Hell.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sheol is quite different to Hell. The Sheol or 'the grave' that the Israelites believed in was not a place of pain and torment, but silence and sleep. Everybody went there, righteous and unrighteous - we know from the OT that David goes there when he dies. When I read 'He descended to the dead' in the Creed, this is where I think Christ went, and after His resurrection no longer exists. I do not believe in a Hell.

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Yes, well that was all David knew. Jesus spoke a little clearer and revealed much more than they knew 1200 years beforehand. You have to do a lot of filleting of the New Testament to get rid of hell.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Except that the NT doesn't speak of eternal torment. Some torment yes, but not a permanent Hell. I do believe in Purgatory but not Hell.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:

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You have to do a lot of filleting of the New Testament to get rid of hell.

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Except that the NT doesn't speak of eternal torment. Some torment yes, but not a permanent Hell. I do believe in Purgatory but not Hell.

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that our justification - and therefore our ability to stand faultless before the throne of the almighty - is explicitly linked by the Apostle Paul to the resurrection, and Abraham's presumptive faith in that resurrection. As Paul says in Romans 4:

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22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness”. 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

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In this sense, ISTM, that the objective reality of atonement for sin and justification by faith require a crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. This seems to cast a question mark over the harrowing of hell, unless I'm missing something of course.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
[ You have to do a lot of filleting of the New Testament to get rid of hell.

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Except that the NT doesn't speak of eternal torment. Some torment yes, but not a permanent Hell. I do believe in Purgatory but not Hell.

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You drove me to it because it seems you've already filleted your New Testament:


Matthew 25:41 ESV

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.


2 Thessalonians 1:9 ESV

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.


Matthew 25:46 ESV

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”


Mark 9:48 ESV

‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

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Well that is from the Evangelical Standard Version Of course it's going to promote a belief in Hell since it benefits evangelicals.

Sorry, I believe in a loving and all-powerful God, which means a permanent Hell is impossible.

[descended into confusing code hell]

[ 22. December 2013, 06:08: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
And before I get criticised for 'picking and choosing', everyone does this. I may as well pick and choose the acceptable bits, if I didn't discard some parts of the Bible I'd have to agree with rape victims being executed for not crying out loud enough.
 

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Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :
 
To the best of my knowledge, the creedal phrase under discussion is derived from 1 Pet.3:19-20. (Link gives fuller context.) If any shipmate knows of any other biblical source(s) I’d be glad to know of it.

I gained an understanding of this passage from an model exegesis by R T France published as part of chapter XIV of the book New Testament Interpretation : Essays on Principles and Methods / edited by I Howard Marshall. Paternoster, 1977, pp 264-278. All that I have time to say is that France puts a very good case for understanding this passage as referring to an action of Jesus that after his resurrection he didn’t go to the abode of the dead, but went to the prison of the fallen angels (who are also referred to in 2Pet 2:4 and Jude 6) to announce that through his death and resurrection he had been victorious over all spiritual powers, and that their judgement was assured. France refutes the doctrine of Christ ‘descending to hell’ – the place of people who have died (Sheol)- by pointing out that the dead are never referred to in the Bible as just ‘spirits’, and that hell or Sheol is never elsewhere referred to as ‘prison’ (phulakē). France also points out that the extra-biblical Book of Enoch says a good deal about the ‘imprisoned fallen angels’ and this would have been part of the background presuppositions of the NT writers and readers.

And while I'm passing...

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
And before I get criticised for 'picking and choosing', everyone does this.
...

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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
To the best of my knowledge, the creedal phrase under discussion is derived from 1 Pet.3:19-20. (Link gives fuller context.) If any shipmate knows of any other biblical source(s) I’d be glad to know of it.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:


The NT writers weren't Protestants, of course.

Funny that ...

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I've always found it interesting that at least some Portuguese (Brazilian) versions of the Apostle's Creed say "He descended into the world of the dead" (Desceu ao mundo dos mortos.)

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Therefore 'he descended into hell' isn't just a neutral summary for information purposes, it's there because some people were teaching other that this and it needed to be written that contrary to what some were teaching, Christ did indeed descend to the place of the dead before he ascended to the right hand of the Father. I don't know what heresy , what controversy that was addressing, but the writer of the creed evidently found it necessary to write those 4 words to counteract what was being falsely taught.

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In Gaul, in the fifth century, the phrase "he descended into hell" came into the creed.

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Without older versions to trace the historical development of the Creed, to determine whether there was an error of transmission or translation, the addition of this phrase to the Creed will continue to be a mystery

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Therefore 'he descended into hell' isn't just a neutral summary for information purposes, it's there because some people were teaching other that this and it needed to be written that contrary to what some were teaching, Christ did indeed descend to the place of the dead before he ascended to the right hand of the Father. I don't know what heresy , what controversy that was addressing, but the writer of the creed evidently found it necessary to write those 4 words to counteract what was being falsely taught.

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I've been spending a bit of time trying to answer the question "what heresy does this phrase guard against?".

Historical background at creeds.net isn't very extensive or useful on this point

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In Gaul, in the fifth century, the phrase "he descended into hell" came into the creed.

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I found a quote attributed to Dr. Douglas Mar on a couple of sites (without full citation)

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Without older versions to trace the historical development of the Creed, to determine whether there was an error of transmission or translation, the addition of this phrase to the Creed will continue to be a mystery

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That seems to be a fair summary of my internet research!

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I've always found it interesting that at least some Portuguese (Brazilian) versions of the Apostle's Creed say "He descended into the world of the dead" (Desceu ao mundo dos mortos.)

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Yes, the French ones say aux enfers (literally "hells", usually understood as "the place of the dead").

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I've just had a very brief skim through the relevant chapter in William Barclay's The Plain Man Looks at the Apostles' Creed' and I have 30 seconds in which to say that he feels that t simply means 'dead and buried' - a flowery way of saying that he was truly dead! It was a way of confirming and reiterating the phrase 'was crucified, dead and buried'.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Maybe there were those who said that he rather slept for the three days before his resurrection and didn't actually experience the realm of the dead like us 'mere mortals'.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
What is (or was) Sheol or Gehenna, and do either of those words equate to the traditional Christian understanding of Hell?

I think the earliest available form of the Apostles' Creed is in Latin and the term used "ad inferos" has been, somewhat loosely, translated as "Hell", rather than "the place of the dead". The Greek of 1 Peter 3 looks as though it means that after his death Jesus preached to "the spirits in prison".

As best I understand it, Catholic understandings of Limbo, Purgatory, Heaven and Hell are a development of some of these basic ideas.

Catholic Catechism

A particular Catholic view.

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Do you in fact mean the incorrect traditional understanding of Hell?

It seems to mew that the Church - especially the mediaeval Church has a lot to answer for when it comes to popular understanding about the Devil, Heaven, hell.

That Dante bloke must have been on something hallucinagenic to come up with his rubbish.

If only people would stick to the unadorned Scriptural imagery we would have a more accurate Gospel message and a more understandable way of salvation.

I for one do not believe in fiery flames, even though I do believe in a place called hell. The Bible is quite clear that no pone is there until the Judgment Day and it is NOT a place where Satan dwells and torments human souls - it's the place of his punishment and torment as well.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
You are far too literal, Mudfrog. Some scholars suggest that Dante himself probably didn't understand these things in as literal a sense as you've taken them here.

Dante's Inferno is a poem, in case you hadn't noticed. Are we saying that Milton was being literal when he had the Fallen Angels constructing cannon for their battle with the Unfallen Angels?

I take your point about medieval depictions and having climbed into the dome of the Duomo this summer and seen all the grotesque depictions of Hell at close quarters I can understand where you're coming from.

Dante, of course, was fascinated by the depictions of heaven and hell etc in the Baptistery just across the way ... and understandably so, they are terrific. Of course, the 'popular' medieval mind would have taken these things at face value but there's no evidence to suggest that Dante took them as literally as you suggest.

If anything, from my reading of Dante's Inferno this summer I came away with the impression that he had a highly developed and very refined and insightful approach to the problem of evil and the nature of it as some kind of negative 'anti-matter' type force rather than a positive or substantial attribute of some kind.

There's also a lot of humour in there.

So, sorry Mudfrog, do not Pass Go, do not collect your £200.

But then, what should I expect from someone who considers those competent but conventional SA lyrics as 'stunning poetry' ...


 

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Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
To the best of my knowledge, the creedal phrase under discussion is derived from 1 Pet.3:19-20. (Link gives fuller context.) If any shipmate knows of any other biblical source(s) I’d be glad to know of it.

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...
But mixed in with that relatively straight forward message is a load of stuff about preaching to spirits in prison - which spirits, which prison, what message? And, if it's the spirits of the dead, why (apparently) only to those who died in the Flood?

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The answer to those questions can be found on pp.269-270 of the book I referred to (and I know that's fat use if you can't get hold of a copy ). I might find the time to summarise the information, or perhaps the quickest solution would be to copy the passage. Would a 400 word attributed quotation (or perhaps I could edit it down to 300) be acceptable to the Hosts under the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act?
Angus
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

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Gamaliel: Dante's Inferno is a poem, in case you hadn't noticed.

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"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.

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For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You are far too literal, Mudfrog. Some scholars suggest that Dante himself probably didn't understand these things in as literal a sense as you've taken them here.

Dante's Inferno is a poem, in case you hadn't noticed. Are we saying that Milton was being literal when he had the Fallen Angels constructing cannon for their battle with the Unfallen Angels?

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yourself re: the poetry

Anyway, the point I was making was not whether I, Sante or the scholars take his visions of hell literally, but that the 'Christian' culture has taken on these medieval visions and pictures and has made them the template for what we popularly believe about hell - so we have red devils with pitchforks and Satan welcoming the damned people to his realm where he can torment them as if he were God's very own high executioner, doing His work for Him.

Similarly, those who deserve to go there - i.e. the young, the friendly and our grandmothers - are welcomed into a nice bright white-cloud Heaven with bewinged cherubs flitting around while we all play harps wearing hospital gowns and coathanger halos.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Do you in fact mean the incorrect traditional understanding of Hell?

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You are far too literal, Mudfrog. Some scholars suggest that Dante himself probably didn't understand these things in as literal a sense as you've taken them here.

Dante's Inferno is a poem, in case you hadn't noticed. Are we saying that Milton was being literal when he had the Fallen Angels constructing cannon for their battle with the Unfallen Angels?

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yourself re: the poetry

Anyway, the point I was making was not whether I, Sante or the scholars take his visions of hell literally, but that the 'Christian' culture has taken on these medieval visions and pictures and has made them the template for what we popularly believe about hell - so we have red devils with pitchforks and Satan welcoming the damned people to his realm where he can torment them as if he were God's very own high executioner, doing His work for Him.

Similarly, those who deserve to go there - i.e. the young, the friendly and our grandmothers - are welcomed into a nice bright white-cloud Heaven with bewinged cherubs flitting around while we all play harps wearing hospital gowns and coathanger halos.

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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
Would a 400 word attributed quotation (or perhaps I could edit it down to 300) be acceptable to the Hosts under the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act?
Angus

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hosting/
Thanks for asking first

The issue is not in fact whether a quotation's use complies with a specific law, but whether the hosts and admins feel comfortable with it being fair use. To me 300 words sounds too long - in fact, much too long. You could try looking on Google Books and adding a link, alternatively write a summary in your own words - which will doubtless be read more closely by more here.
/hosting
 

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Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :
 

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

...

.......... 19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison,

............ (Who? Peter answers this in the identical context in his next epistle. Funny that. That nobody ever sees that. But me?! (a))
...

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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
... Jesus ... went to the prison of the fallen angels (who are also referred to in 2Pet 2:4 and Jude 6) to announce that through his death and resurrection he had been victorious over all spiritual powers, and that their judgement was assured. ...

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Satan welcoming the damned people to his realm where he can torment them as if he were God's very own high executioner, doing His work for Him.

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In the tomb with the body and in hell with the soul, in Paradise with the thief and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, wast Thou, O boundless Christ, filling all things.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Apropos of nothing, this prayer is spoken during the Great Entrance on Holy Saturday:

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In the tomb with the body and in hell with the soul, in Paradise with the thief and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, wast Thou, O boundless Christ, filling all things.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Interestingly, in a number of Bible verses, Satan and the demons are the ones being tortured in the eternal fire. They're the tortuees, not the torturers.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
How can God be one in substance but three unconfused persons? How can God be transcendent yet also imminent? It might seem like a cop out but I would say, try not to think how, just wonder. Trouble begins when we start to think too linear.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
How can God be one in substance but three unconfused persons? How can God be transcendent yet also imminent? It might seem like a cop out but I would say, try not to think how, just wonder. Trouble begins when we start to think too linear.

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He's not in one substance, the three are of one substance. Also God is also imminent through the incarnation and subsequently through the Holy Spirit.

I can't see your problem.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Because the gospel is the power of God to those who believe? "He who believes in me, even though he were dead. yet shall he live"

Interesting translators' puzzle there in John 11:25, of course. More modern translations make it "even if he dies", but from my limited Greek understanding, there's a minor difference between the Textus Receptus (KJV) and the revised Greek text on this point. A small difference that makes all the difference!

More appropriate for Keryg, probably. The interesting theological issue is whether our classic protestant understanding actually limits the power and scope of the gospel of salvation. Only in this life. A statement or a question?

[ 23. December 2013, 08:18: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 

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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 

 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
The dead can hear the gospel and be saved by its power. Particularly if proclaimed by the One who is to be believed in.

I'm suggesting those are questions which Protestantism normally answers with "only while we live". We take dead to mean dead in our sins but alive in our bodies. Whereas Catholics and Orthodox, I think, believe that the saving power of the gospel may transcend physical death.

I'm speculating, daron. Why should not the gospel of salvation have power in the mouth of the One in whom we believe, whether risen or not? The imagery is of the 'spirits in prison' whatever that may mean following Jesus. We believe and follow, don't we?

[ 23. December 2013, 09:07: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 

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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
Let me try to ask the question another way. Did the mighty resurrection and glorious ascension of the Son of God actually change anything, or was it just a mop up operation with objective soteriological effect? I ask because it seems to me that we're suggesting a sort of over-realised soteriology which doesn't actually require the real, historical, time-bound resurrection and ascension of Christ for the gospel to be effectual.
 

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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
Correction: "with no objective soteriological effect"...
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Why divide them and try to pinpoint as specific moment in time? It seems to me an all too linear way of thinking about the cross, resurrection, ascension and our salvation, and I'd even go so far as to say that it is positively unhelpful.

[ 23. December 2013, 09:43: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sorry, daronmedway, but I don't see how this follows at all from what anyone has said here, be they Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox.

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Let me try to ask the question another way. Did the mighty resurrection and glorious ascension of the Son of God actually change anything, or was it just a mop up operation with objective soteriological effect? I ask because it seems to me that we're suggesting a sort of over-realised soteriology which doesn't actually require the real, historical, time-bound resurrection and ascension of Christ for the gospel to be effectual.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
2.15am begin sermon, ...
2.45am, I end sermon

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Why divide them and try to pinpoint as specific moment in time? It seems to me an all too linear way of thinking about the cross, resurrection, ascension and our salvation, and I'd even go so far as to say that it is positively unhelpful.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
2.15am begin sermon, ...
2.45am, I end sermon

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That can't possibly be right. Half an hour for a sermon? That's barely long enough to start warming up to the first point!

OK, that's also flippant.

But, on your "time table" I have a more serious question. Why knock on the door to the place of the dead, find it locked and then kick it in?

I've always been more inclined in my limited thought on the subject to have a view that is more like:

1) Jesus died. Really, truly, totally dead. And, he then experiences the same as everyone else who is totally dead. For people who consider the spirit or soul to be seperable from the body, a way to illustrate that is to say that his soul/spirit went to the place of the dead with all the other souls/spirits of the dead.

2) Jesus (or his soul/spirit) is then already inside the place of the dead. No need to knock down a door to get in, the nails knocked into his wrists were knocking enough.

3) Jesus bursts open the door from the inside providing a means for returning to the place of the living. It is the Ressurection that breaks that door. In so doing, he opens the way for others to follow him; he is the first born from the dead.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Why divide them and try to pinpoint as specific moment in time? It seems to me an all too linear way of thinking about the cross, resurrection, ascension and our salvation, and I'd even go so far as to say that it is positively unhelpful.

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Well, IME, time is linear and my life seems to be inexorably panning out in a linear manner. YMMV. However, the gospel texts themselves testify to that reality: they start with the incarnation and birth of Christ and they move on through time to his death and resurrection and then finish with ascension. In fact, the whole bible seems to take time quite seriously One can only assume that this is because the order of events in time somehow matters.

I guess we can try to cut the gospel free from all constrain of time and history thereby creating some kind of mystical religion in which actual historical events are subsumed into something more akin to hinduism. But it wouldn't be Christianity.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I don't think anyone is saying that, daron. The only difference between us is that I don't see that the fulfilment argument excludes some kind of proclamation to the dead, or to fallen angels.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
So, the proclamation was prospective and anticipative of the resurrection? Where did this incomplete gospel get its saving power?

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Apropos of nothing, this prayer is spoken during the Great Entrance on Holy Saturday:

quote:

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In the tomb with the body and in hell with the soul, in Paradise with the thief and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, wast Thou, O boundless Christ, filling all things.

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Nice. But how can an unrisen, unascended Christ do that?

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What makes you think He can't?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
This might sound ad hominem and please forgive me (in advance, in advance of linear time ... if it is) ...

Daronmedway seems so 'hell-bent' - as it were - of finding fault with anything that isn't as Reformed as he is that he is erecting more strawmen than The Strawman and Scarecrow Appreciation Society's Annual Strawman Convention.

Nobody - not the Orthodox, not the RCs, not other forms of Protestant to strictly Reformed ones - are postulating a mystical and non-material outworking of salvation history. I don't see anyone here proclaiming that there wasn't a real crucifixion, that there wasn't a real burial, that there wasn't a real resurrection.

What am I missing that daronmedway seems so able to see that the rest of us can't?

I'm tempted to accuse him of join-the-dots Christianity, an almost mechanical and mechanistic approach.

That probably wouldn't be fair but he does seem to be painting himself into a corner with this one.

Meanwhile ... @Alan ... of course I'm not thinking of a real door and real chambers and dungeons. I'm not even thinking of a 'real' sermon in terms of some kind of event that took place in Hades in space and time ... as it were.

It's more that Christ's death and resurrection 'proclaimed' that ... it was a sermon in itself. It proclaimed who he is.

Hence my rather flippant caricature with the lift (elevator).

As for the sermon, I'm surprised that some of the more Reformed types didn't take me to task for including an 'altar-call' at the end ...


 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
This might sound ad hominem and please forgive me (in advance, in advance of linear time ... if it is) ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Apropos of nothing, this prayer is spoken during the Great Entrance on Holy Saturday:

quote:

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In the tomb with the body and in hell with the soul, in Paradise with the thief and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, wast Thou, O boundless Christ, filling all things.

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Nice. But how can an unrisen, unascended Christ do that?

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What makes you think He can't?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What am I missing that daronmedway seems so able to see that the rest of us can't?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Apropos of nothing, this prayer is spoken during the Great Entrance on Holy Saturday:

quote:

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In the tomb with the body and in hell with the soul, in Paradise with the thief and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, wast Thou, O boundless Christ, filling all things.

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Nice. But how can an unrisen, unascended Christ do that?

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What makes you think He can't?

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quote:

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daronmedway: I want to know why you think he can. Maybe you could convince me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

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daronmedway: I want to know why you think he can. Maybe you could convince me.

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He's Almighty. Duh.

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quote:

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Alan Cresswell: That's an answer that is too easy. It begs a whole load of questions: If he's Almighty, why couldn't He just forgive us our sins? Why did Christ need to die and rise? What did it achieve? The NT authors in inummerable places state clearly that the death and resurrection of Christ (and incarnation, ascension etc) achieved something that could not have been achieved any other way. Why wasn't there another way?

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Thank GOD Angus! I've been saying it for years here to no response whatsoever. May be the time is right. You can have ALL the glory mate.

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I don’t think I deserve any glory – R T France can have all the credit as far as I’m concerned.

Having taken Hostly advice, I don’t think I’d better quote from the book I referred to as extensively as I’d like to. This is a pity, as France writes very logically and lucidly, and re-phrasing in my own words will only produce a less elegant version. However, here goes:

We need to be aware of the whole world of Jewish mythology which is foreign to 21st century minds, and Jewish apocalyptic writings often refer to the passage in Gen.6:1-4. According to such writings, these ‘sons of God’ were thrown out of heaven because of their sin, and imprisoned to await their punishment at the last judgement. Until then, they – or their offspring – were believed to be the source of evil on earth. In the passage in 2 Peter referring to the fallen angels they are linked to Noah and the flood, which is recounted in the subsequent verses of Gen 6. The extra-biblical books Testament of Naphthali (3:5) and Jubilees (10:5) also make this link (with the former stating that the flood came because of the sin of the fallen angels.)

However, it is the Book of Enoch that gives most detail about the sin, imprisonment, and punishment of these angels, which is covered in many passages in that book. There are several parallels between these passages and 1Pet.3:19-20, notably in Enoch chapter 12 where Enoch is given a commission to go and proclaim the impending punishment to the imprisoned angels. This is a remarkable parallel to the mission that Christ performed, as recorded in 1Peter.

France concludes this discussion with: “The evidence is more than sufficient to indicate that [in 1Pet3:19] ta en phulakē pneumata* must be the fallen angels who, according to tradition, sinned at the time of Noah, and are in custody awaiting their final punishment. To us the reference is obscure; to a church which knew and prized the Book of Enoch (as the author of Jude so evidently did too) it would need no explanation.” (New Testament Interpretation ed. I Howard Marshall. Paternoster, 1977 p.270)

On the subject (as debated in several posts above from Barnabas62, daronmedway, and Ad Orientem) of whether what was preached was the gospel, I don’t think that it was. The verb used is kērusso which means ‘to announce in a formal or official manner by means of a herald’** not euangelizō ‘to communicate good news concerning something (in the NT a particular reference to the gospel message about Jesus)'** The confusion on this is probably caused by older versions (KJV, RV, RSV) translating both of these verbs as ‘preach’, obscuring the difference between them. (cf. ESV which translates as ‘proclaimed’).

As for when this mission was performed by Jesus, there is nothing in 1Peter that indicates that it was in between his death and resurrection. Thus there is no conflict with Matt.12:40 as referenced earlier by daronmedway. I trust that shipmates can now appreciate why I refrain from saying the phrase of the creed under discussion.

A final comment on my approach to this sort of subject, for Evensong’s benefit if he or she is reading this as prompted by my post on another thread. Theologically I probably fit best into the ‘conservative evangelical’ category in regarding the Bible as the primary and definitive source for belief and practice. But in order to understand firstly what that primary and definitive source meant in its original context, I will use every scholarly resource – linguistic, literary, socio-cultural, etc. – that I can get my hands on.

Angus

* Original Greek script transliterated to Latin script
** Definitions from: Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I want to know why you think he can. Maybe you could convince me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I guess the fact the the Apostle Paul said that unrisen, unascended, unglorified Christ would make Christians the most pitiable people on earth. That suggests to me that the bodily, historical resurrection achieved something concrete and objective that is crucial to the faith.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell
That's an answer that is too easy. It begs a whole load of questions: If he's Almighty, why couldn't He just forgive us our sins? Why did Christ need to die and rise? What did it achieve? The NT authors in inummerable places state clearly that the death and resurrection of Christ (and incarnation, ascension etc) achieved something that could not have been achieved any other way. Why wasn't there another way?

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I guess the fact the the Apostle Paul said that unrisen, unascended, unglorified Christ would make Christians the most pitiable people on earth. That suggests to me that the bodily, historical resurrection achieved something concrete and objective that is crucial to the faith.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
So, were there any justified sinners before the resurrection?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I think maybe you're being way too timebound about this. We're talking about the "Lamb slain before the foundation of the world," right? Trying to determine the exact moment when the benefits of the Cross kick in is probably something like asking how heavy is yellow. The angels are going to shake their ears and go "Wha-a-a-a' ?"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Why must there be all this kergymaniac proof texting? What a load of codswollop -- all you are doing is speculating over the speculations of Paul and those who wrote in his name. Get over this fucking bibliolatry.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I guess the fact the the Apostle Paul said that unrisen, unascended, unglorified Christ would make Christians the most pitiable people on earth. That suggests to me that the bodily, historical resurrection achieved something concrete and objective that is crucial to the faith.

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I have always taken that to mean, if he didn't really rise, then Christianity is a sham, and we who proclaim his resurrection have been duped. Not "His ability to do something changed between Friday and Monday." Our religion is anchored in the resurrection. Jesus' abilities are not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Still not convinced about my being overly time-bound. The problem, ISTM, is where to draw the line on this approach. Was Jesus fully man before his incarnation? Clearly not. So that's time-bound. Was Jesus pierced for our transgressions before the crucifixion? No.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Still not convinced about my being overly time-bound. The problem, ISTM, is where to draw the line on this approach. Was Jesus fully man before his incarnation? Clearly not. So that's time-bound. Was Jesus pierced for our transgressions before the crucifixion? No.

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And yet he was slain before the foundation of the world.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

However, I must say that I'm just about sold on Alan Cresswell's interpretation because it centres so strongly on the resurrection as the key moment. Christ is raised, the gates of death are burst open from the inside, Jesus becomes the gateway to glory and proclaims, "Follow me" taking captives in his train (choo choo) like the best scene that never happened from Harry Potter.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

There's all manner of strange interweavings and intersections going on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Thank GOD Angus! I've been saying it for years here to no response whatsoever. May be the time is right. You can have ALL the glory mate.

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I don’t think I deserve any glory – R T France can have all the credit as far as I’m concerned.

Having taken Hostly advice, I don’t think I’d better quote from the book I referred to as extensively as I’d like to. This is a pity, as France writes very logically and lucidly, and re-phrasing in my own words will only produce a less elegant version.

---

quote:

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We need to be aware of the whole world of Jewish mythology which is foreign to 21st century minds

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quote:

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On the subject (as debated in several posts above from Barnabas62, daronmedway, and Ad Orientem) of whether what was preached was the gospel, I don’t think that it was. The verb used is kērusso which means ‘to announce in a formal or official manner by means of a herald’ not euangelizō ‘to communicate good news concerning something (in the NT a particular reference to the gospel message about Jesus)' The confusion on this is probably caused by older versions (KJV, RV, RSV) translating both of these verbs as ‘preach’, obscuring the difference between them. (cf. ESV which translates as ‘proclaimed’).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Quick view on 'gospel' . There is this nice short verse in Mark, 1:14 where Jesus is described as "preaching (or proclaiming) the gospel of God." The Greek is kerusso evangelion theos.

The only point I was making is that to limit the meaning of gospel to post resurrection proclamations doesn't really strike me as consistent with New Testament usage.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Once again, evangelicals get stung by avoiding anything not in the Protestant canon of Scripture. I admit, I'm as bad as the rest of us. Thanks for summarising French on filling in those blanks.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Quick view on 'gospel' . There is this nice short verse in Mark, 1:14 where Jesus is described as "preaching (or proclaiming) the gospel of God." The Greek is kerusso evangelion theos.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

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Alan Cresswell: That's an answer that is too easy. It begs a whole load of questions: If he's Almighty, why couldn't He just forgive us our sins? Why did Christ need to die and rise? What did it achieve? The NT authors in inummerable places state clearly that the death and resurrection of Christ (and incarnation, ascension etc) achieved something that could not have been achieved any other way. Why wasn't there another way?

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I think those are good questions. Why can't He?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
As I said there, I said, He came at the perfect time in history to shock us in to transcendent humanism which we're only just hearing in the market place.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
He came at the perfect time in history to shock us in to transcendent humanism which we're only just hearing in the market place.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Ay up Freddy. Nice story. But it ain't in the text.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Peter was obviously, Occamianly, talking about demons. Which is all the more intriguing. Why bother if their fate is worse than death?

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quote:

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I Peter 3.18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us[e] to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

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quote:

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I Peter 4:5 They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

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quote:

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Ephesians 4:8 Therefore He says:
“When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.”(Psalms 68:18)
9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

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quote:

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Isaiah 61:1 "The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to [those who are] bound;

Isaiah 42:4 He will not fail nor be discouraged, Till He has established justice in the earth; …7 To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

Zechariah 9.11 "As for you also, Because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

Psalm 68.6 “God brings out those which are bound with fetters.”

Psalm 79.11 “Let the groaning of the bound come before you. ”

Psalm 102.20 “To hear the groaning of the bound, to open to the sons of death.”

Psalm 146.7 “Jehovah who looses the bound.”

Ezekiel 26.20 “When I cause you to go down with those going down to the pit, to the people of old, and I cause you to dwell in the land of the lower ones, in the desolations from of old, so that you do not dwell with those going down to the pit, I will give beauty in the land of the living.”

Acts 2.24 Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. 25 For David says concerning Him: “For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption” ( Psalm 16.10). …He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.

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quote:

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Isaiah 60:2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the Lord will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you.

Matthew 4:13 He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles:
16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
I think that this is right there in the texts.

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Quite. What a pity you guys aren't Orthodox.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
A.Pilgrim put a different view together re the Peter texts. What I'm clear about is that the texts Freddy quotes are those used certainly in Catholic understandings and it appears also in Orthodox understandings.

The discussion has helped me to understand the significance of "descended to the dead" in the Apostles' Creed. Thanks to contributors.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Completely obvious, again:

1 Peter 3:18-20 (NIV)

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—

20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

well that's ONE way of translating it. Especially verse 19.

Here's another:

1 Peter 3:18-20

Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

18 because also Christ once for sin did suffer -- righteous for unrighteous -- that he might lead us to God, having been put to death indeed, in the flesh, and having been made alive in the spirit,

19 in which also to the spirits in prison having gone he did preach,

20 who sometime disbelieved, when once the long-suffering of God did wait, in days of Noah -- an ark being preparing -- in which few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water;

the first works fine once you've made your mind up that's what He did. And to whom He did it.

The second has a more Occamic interpretation.


1 Peter 3:18-20

Revised Standard Version (RSV - a more neutral interpretation)

18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, 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;

.......... 19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison,

............ (Who? Peter answers this in the identical context in his next epistle. Funny that. That nobody ever sees that. But me?! (a))

.................... 20 who formerly did not obey,

............ when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.


My indents take us back, further back and forward in time.


(a) 2 Peter 2:4-5 (YLT)

4 For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,

5 and the old world did not spare, but the eighth person, Noah, of righteousness a preacher, did keep, a flood on the world of the impious having brought,
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Who died and put Occam in charge of scriptural interpretation?
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Reason.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Minimally Peter got the bizarre idea that at the time of Noah, itself a myth with no scientific basis and in fact the utter opposite and therefore nothing to do with history but about something else, Jesus went and preached to fallen angels who were banged up in prison like the outlaws in Superman II. Again, it's not history, it's a figure of speech. He's making a totally different point, not based on any weird esoteric knowledge, even if he thought he knew any. In fact the way in which these people's minds worked fact, fiction, myth, figure of speech are all one thing. They were not being used to reveal anything about the afterlife about which they, and of course incarnate Jesus, knew nothing.

OK let's make Peter's fantasy fantastically more woodenly convoluted. During His death Jesus was transcendently alive and went to visit those who died before the Flood - for which there is only evidence that it didn't happen - thousands of years before. Human beings who had spent several lifetimes for the Methuselahs among them and tens and hundreds and thousands of lifetimes for the rest in chains and darkness. Where God the Son in his omnipotence, but not having been accepted back to fullest divinity by the Father, only in some second class state, went and preached just to them and not anyone who died in (by the million at His hand) and after the Flood. Or are they 'symbolic' of everyone?

Is that better?

Making all of this mandatory, making God out to be an ineffable cosmocidal killer outside the aberrant incarnation and somehow sanitizing it all in that?
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Minimally Peter got the bizarre idea that at the time of Noah, itself a myth with no scientific basis and in fact the utter opposite and therefore nothing to do with history but about something else, Jesus went and preached to fallen angels who were banged up in prison like the outlaws in Superman II....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
OK let's make Peter's fantasy fantastically more woodenly convoluted. During His death Jesus was transcendently alive and went to visit those who died before the Flood - for which there is only evidence that it didn't happen - thousands of years before. Human beings who had spent several lifetimes for the Methuselahs among them and tens and hundreds and thousands of lifetimes for the rest in chains and darkness.

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quote:

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Matthew 24:37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

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2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly..

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Reason.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Of course it doesn't. As a rule of thumb it's a fine defense against wooden literalism and the distracting, irrelevant and toxic weirdness that entails. Sometimes reality is more complex than one can ever dream. The metaphors of Peter aren't any form of reality. Why one would want to defend them as literal 'gospel' when they serve no such intent is beyond me. Let alone defend even more bizarre wooden wroughtings of them.

Take a wooden interpretation, make it worse and build dogma on it that perpetuates God the Killer.

Why?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Take a wooden interpretation, make it worse and build dogma on it that perpetuates God the Killer.

Why?

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• It explains how Christ's salvation was retroactive.
• It suggests how Christ's salvation worked - through preaching that dissipated the darkness of ignorance and confusion.
• It suggests a natural progression over long periods of time, and why Christ appeared at the time that He did.

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And say nothing, which is what you're saying, in response to blood simple repentance on offer.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Metanoia of your hermeneutic.

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I need to repent of thinking something you disagree with? Ooooookaaaaaayyyyyyyy.
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I don't know where to start with the premises here and throughout, so I won't.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
And certainly I'm not wedded to the need to insult people who don't share my interpretations.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I mean you cannot possibly believe that frail, feeble, fecklessly innocent human beings have been languishing in hell for the past million years. Or had been even for a mere couple of thousand.

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Well, if you put it that way, yes, who would believe it?

But that's not how it was.

I would say that the spiritual realm is a single, dynamic, changing environment. Its so-called division into heaven and hell is not absolute, but is rather a product of the way that similarities attract in that world. Heaven and hell are just the results of that attraction.

So it is not that the good were mistakenly sent to hell by a puzzled God. Rather, the environment deteriorated over long periods of time, due to the negative changes in this world. People increasingly entered the spiritual world with new and confusing false ideas.

Only Jesus was able to clear this up.
 

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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
Freddy + Martin: where winsomely wrong meets wrongly winsome. Honestly, reading you guys is like eavesdropping on conversation between Origen and Marcion.
 

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Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
I suspect that's fully enough of the snide comments at each other.

[ 29. December 2013, 20:46: Message edited by: Gwai ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
It's my fault, sorry.

Damn this is depressing.

80%+ of tens of billions of Christians believe that God was afflicting their ancestors for thousands of years? Based on the musings of an ignorant Iron Age fisherman still blinking in the light of three and a half years of revelation incarnate?

And we 'modernize' that by extending it to millions of years to fit in with the facts of evolution?

Whilst entirely ignoring the point?

This is SO depressing.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Freddy, please make your mind up. The dead hadn't been ... living ... in hell worse than their brief lives or they had? Hell was fine and then it got hellish until Jesus made it nice again? What?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
No need for it to be depressing, Martin.

Less of the rationalisation and more of the iconography.

I don't know how anyone can look at this and not be cheered:

http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBR&Volume=19&Issue=3&ArticleID=16

Nor these:

http://roughplacesplain.tumblr.com/post/20674399369/the-harrowing-of-hell

Of those, the Orthodox ones are my favourite.

Enjoy.

daronmedway might like to look at them too. He might learn something ...



 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Reading daronmedway and Zach82 is like eavesdropping on a conversation between Calvin and Beza ...



Only nowhere near as interesting ...



Seriously, leave off the speculations, guys and enjoy the pictures.

I don't pretend to have the foggiest idea what those verses mean that are used as the basis for the idea of the Harrowing of Hell but I chuckle when I see the squashed demon in the Fra Angelico fresco and I rejoice when I see Adam and Eve and the others yanked out of the underworld by the Risen Christ in the Orthodox depictions.

They'll do for me.

That doesn't stop me getting all wound up and cerebral over other issues though.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
The problem as I see it, Martin, is that you are conflating a lot of different ideas into the word "Hell." The Hebrew "Sheol" does not refer to a place of everlasting torment; the Greek "Hades" doesn't either. Gahenna, the burning garbage dump, does, but we don't believe Christ harrowed the garbage dump, or Dante's Inferno, but the "grave," in Greek Hades. "O Death, where is thy victory? O Grave, where is thy sting?" This parallel couplet makes no sense if we treat "Grave" to mean "Place of eternal burning torment."

We Orthodoxen sing, "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." Not upon those in eternal torment, but in the tombs. Death, not Dante's Inferno. Somebody upstream made this distinction, but it kinda got overlooked.

Thus it's error to read a flaming, Gahenna, Dante's Inferno meaning of Hades into the Harrowing of Hell. Very often if you try to map a definition from one system of thought onto the same word in a different system, you end up with something that neither side recognizes as the truth.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Thanks Gamaliel. I LOVE the iconography, the poetry, the symbolism, for all the right and wrong reasons: the gothic horror of it all, of our pathetic broken projection.

Jesus truly has descended down here to our hells and brought us up from those foul depths where we were lost.

Allelujah!

Jesus saves.

Praise God.

What's depressing, discouraging is that we justify projecting our diseased madness as God's benevolence, like the Greeks did the Erinyes as the Eumenides.

We proclaim that gospel.

But I DO love the unknown Russian artist. Dürer can do no wrong. And the Cezanne made me think of Pope Francis.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
mousethief. Eirene. Good night.
 

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Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It's my fault, sorry.

Damn this is depressing.

80%+ of tens of billions of Christians believe that God was afflicting their ancestors for thousands of years? Based on the musings of an ignorant Iron Age fisherman still blinking in the light of three and a half years of revelation incarnate?

And we 'modernize' that by extending it to millions of years to fit in with the facts of evolution?

Whilst entirely ignoring the point?

This is SO depressing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Freddy + Martin: where winsomely wrong meets wrongly winsome. Honestly, reading you guys is like eavesdropping on conversation between Origen and Marcion.

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I love it!
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Freddy, please make your mind up. The dead hadn't been ... living ... in hell worse than their brief lives or they had? Hell was fine and then it got hellish until Jesus made it nice again? What?

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Hell isn't a place. It is a state of mind. So it's not that anyone was cast into hell. Rather it is that the newcomers increasingly made life in parts of the spiritual world hellish.

Until the Incarnation.

Just like Lord of the Rings. This is what Tolkien had in mind, I believe.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Gamaliel (and you are a towering giant for me, I can barely see up to let alone past as you well know)

I ain't speculatin' nuthin. I'm not pretending to have the foggiest idea. I have a clear idea what those verses mean: What Peter meant by them (secondary) and why he used them (primary). Where he got the idea from IS intriguing, but that is tertiary - in importance. The primary importance is the context, which utterly trivializes Peter's use of verses that demon-strably minimally refer to God the Son preaching to fallen angels in prison leading up to the Flood that never happened. Take out all that weird, Cabbalistic, mythical, esoteric stuff and what are we left with? Something far simpler. Peter has previous on making stuff up to make a point. That's fine. They all did. Paul too. As did their Master. What's the point? Not of them doing that, but of what they were illustrating with these quaint stories.

mousethief.

Not a problem. I am completely conversant with all the hells thank you. You are missing one. The one Peter is referring to. Tartaroo. And GEhenna was not a burning garbage dump. There was no garbage. Apart from broken pottery. Whence archaeology. The first reference to fires in the Valley of Hinnom after the exceptions in the Old Testament and Josephus (for the same cause, war) is by the C12-13th rabbi David Kimhi. You've been watching too much Star Wars. GAhenna is a modified Confederacy of Independent Systems Lucrehulk-class core ship. I could not possibly confuse Hades with Gehenna and neither of them with Tartaroo (no, NOT Tatooine). Neither did Peter. Nor did I overlook anything anadromous.

I like what the Orthodoxen sing.

If you're saying it's all symbolic and the dead are oblivious and Jesus in His full humanity shared that, amen, hurrah!

Net Spinster

I agree, of the easily twenty billion Christians who have lived, hardly any have been able to give this any real thought. My theology has always included Jesus' forgiveness of Judas, thank you SO much.

Freddy

There are no conscious newcomers in Tartaroo or Hades. Gehenna is yet to come. Or we're in it.

[ 30. December 2013, 21:49: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I like what the Orthodoxen sing.

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quote:

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If you're saying it's all symbolic and the dead are oblivious and Jesus in His full humanity shared that, amen, hurrah!

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Nope, that's not what we mean. We mean what the words mean when we use those words. More honest that way.
 

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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
MT, you know that argument won't work here on the Ship - the seat of relativistic subjectivism. It's pure fancy to think that certain words mean what they were meant to mean when they were written.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Wrong again mousethief. How can you be so wrong?

I believe those words exactly and as honestly and as fully and as deeply and as meaningfully as written, as its possible to do, at least as much as you do if not more. In fact more!

I certainly don't believe for one moment that dead human beings languished fully conscious for thousands and hundreds of thousands of years after their nasty, brutish and short lives until Jesus popped down to turn the fairy lights on and make the grave as pretty as the church (schism of course) yard across the road.

Neither do you. But you win I'm sure. You always do, whether you do or not. Be happy! You're right after all.

Iterate.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
And daronmedway, please tell us do where we ALL go wrong except you.
 

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Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
Martin, I can (usually) read you for understanding, but, as someone who largely agrees with you, on this one I'm not seeing why you are so opposed to, particularly, Mousethief's understanding of the HOH. Sure, for all sorts of very good reasons, you have a visceral dislike of the popular conception of "Hell"; it's a dislike I share. But it's not that understanding of which Peter is speaking. It's the grave, death, however you want to phrase it, which Jesus harrows. I have no idea of the precise mechanism of which Peter speaks, but I do believe that in the inseperable Paschal event, an event both inside and outside of time, temporal and eternal, Jesus broke forever the power of death, and the "harrowing" of the grave was and is the inevitable consequence. I do think Peter understood that.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Jolly Jape. I'm wrong even when I'm right I know. And that's not me being facetious. My form eclipses my content. And I'm right. There is no way Peter is talking of Hades. He's talking of Tartaroo.

But let's make it so. Seriously. He's talking Hades. To make that work, which I will, in the interest of embracing all from the emergent metanarrative, then it IS entirely metaphorical.

mousethief is saying otherwise as far as I can see, that the dead are conscious in Hades. daronmedway almost certainly is.

I could be wrong.

But making it work as Hades and reconciling that with God not being the Czar of Siberia where the dead are exiled for aeons, then it is entirely symbolic.

The oblivious dead of a million years experienced no change in their non-experience. OR the death of Christ a million years in the future was applied as soon as they died and they all went to heaven in a little row boat. after a nominal dose of Hades-Purgatory AKA Judgement.

OK? So I've talked my way round. Happy ?
 

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Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
Happy? You always "make my day", Martin

Seriously though, we know very little of what happens after death, and the Bible does not have any single voice here.
I think that the important part of the Petrine verses is not so much where people who have died are, but that those who, from our point of view, have died before the Christ event, were not free. This may be because they are "asleep", or because their sinful nature in some way still holds them. There is no suggestion in Peter that they are the subject of conscious torment, just that they were, in some way, unfree, and they are now free, as the inevitable consequence of the events of Easter. They were dead, and are now alive.
 

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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
mousethief is saying otherwise as far as I can see, that the dead are conscious in Hades. daronmedway almost certainly is.

I could be wrong.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
mousethief is saying otherwise as far as I can see, that the dead are conscious in Hades.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Where did this story, regardless of meaning, come from? Why did Peter use it in his first epistle?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Freddy: Are you thinking that Peter is the only source for the idea that Christ descended into hell, preached to those there, and freed those who were bound there?

... Martin: Yes.

Freddy: Didn't we show that there are several other passages about it, both in Old Testament prophecy and in the Epistles?

... Martin: No. Confirmation bias yes.

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quote:

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Ezekiel 26.20 “When I cause you to go down with those going down to the pit, to the people of old, and I cause you to dwell in the land of the lower ones, in the desolations from of old, so that you do not dwell with those going down to the pit, I will give beauty in the land of the living.”

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quote:

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Acts 2.24 Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. 25 For David says concerning Him: “For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption” ( Psalm 16.10). …He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.

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quote:

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Ephesians 4:8 Therefore He says:
“When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive (or led captives in His train)
And gave gifts to men.”(Psalms 68:18)
9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

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quote:

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I Peter 3.18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us[e] to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

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quote:

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I Peter 4:5 They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Oh and He didn't free anybody at the time of the Flood.

He freed everyone when He was crucified.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Aye, He's talking only about demons.

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quote:

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Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
v 24

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What do you mean v24?

Martin - parsimony is a tool to distinguish probability of truth between potential narratives. Its practical application requires the consideration of necessity. Untrammelled parsimony is another name for reductionism, a project that can only lead to monism and the destruction of meaning. If any of us are to engage with you on that, we need to know what entities you consider are done away with by your "parsimonious" explanation. And you will need to identify what you consider to be the constraints of necessity so we can be convinced you have not accidentally violated them and thereby the constraints that guard against the misuse of parsimony. I can't see any evidence you have mentioned them at all so it's not going to be possible even to engage with that aspect until what appears to be a private consideration is made more public. But let me know and I'll try to engage with it.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
I have way upstream Ron. But I'll do it again.

And v 24 shows who the dead are. Jesus' audience. Or were. On receiving Him, accepting Him, they passed in to life. As it says.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Or verse 28 says who the dead are. Verse 28 clearly looks back at the preceding verses, because it starts, "Do not be amazed at this, for..."

This is a complex passage and it is a little too facile to say that verse 25 must perforce be referring to the spiritually-dead-but-physically-alive because it comes after verse 24. The context is much larger than those 2 verses.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Or v 28 says that the physically dead will yet benefit just as the spiritually dead of v 24 did in v 25.

A facility born of context. Context is all for sure. And the context of the context. Especially Jesus' almost completely figurative way of speaking. A constraint of ancient Aramaic apparently.

If Jesus knew what the literal dead were up to literally, He never literally, unambiguously, unequivocally, progressively, dialectically, antithetically, abrogationally said.

It wasn't important to Him even if He knew (and how human was He?).

So for me there is no tradition I've lost or can go back or on to recapture. I value input from all traditions more than ever and want more. I've been freed to do so from the tradition of fundamentalism by neo-orthodoxy and inclusive postmodernism. All add to the richness. Including the tradition of the Harrowing of Hell.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
But! I have difficulty, which I've laid at the foot of the Cross, with the implication of the Harrowing of Hell of God the Prison Governor, the Camp Commandant, the Punisher, the Damner, the Executioner, the Killer.

Even with the modern gloss that the dead are alive but comatose, unfeeling. They might as well be ... dead.

How linear of me!

And in focussing on the insert of Jesus descending unto Hell we also misdirect ourselves from the substance of what Peter was saying.
 

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Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :
 
As ever, the demands of RL have prevented me from taking part in a discussion when it has been active. However, I’d still like to make the following observations.

I don’t think that there is any validity in linking together, as Freddy did, 1Peter 3:18-20 and 1Peter 4:5-6. In the first passage Christ is the one performing the action of proclamation, the gospel is not mentioned here, and the proclamation was to ‘imprisoned spirits’. Nowhere else in the Bible are the dead referred to as ‘imprisoned spirits’ (en phulakē pneumasin), so I think it is incorrect to do so here.

In the second passage, there is no mention of who is doing the preaching of the gospel – it could be human messengers, not Christ. The context is in view of future judgement ‘they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead’ (v.5) – that is those who will, by the time of that judgement have died, but who had the gospel preached to them while they were still alive. To adopt this understanding here then harmonises with other biblical passages such as Hebrews 9:27-28 and Luke 16:19-31 that state or imply that after death comes judgement, and there is no opportunity then to hear the gospel and ‘live according to God in the spirit’ (v.6) as there had been before death.

The passage in Eph 4:8-10 talks about Jesus’s ascension, and comments that before he ascended, he had to descend to earth (at the incarnation). The phrase ‘katōtera merē tēs gēs' can be identified as a genitive of quality – ‘the earthly lower parts’ rather than ‘lower parts of the earth’, and this makes more sense in the context. Even if this second phrase is adopted as the translation (as in Freddy’s quotation) I’m not convinced by proposing a connection between any supposed ‘lower parts of the earth’ and the location of the ‘imprisoned spirits’ of 1Peter 3:18-20 in the gloomy dungeon of Tartarus (2Pet.2:4).

---------------

There is still an outstanding subject that this thread has touched on – namely what did happen between Jesus’s death and resurrection? There appear to be two contradicting pieces of evidence. On one hand we have Jesus’s words to the dying thief: ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Luke 23:43, ESV) and Matt.12:40 ‘... so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ (ESV) So where was Jesus? In the earth, or in Paradise?

The most satisfactory explanation that I can come up with is as follows. For those three days Jesus was dead in the tomb – at least in his human nature – in accordance with Matt.12:40. What happened to his divine nature is, I guess, a mystery not revealed to us. And as I mentioned in a previous post, there is nothing in the text of Peter’s letters to indicate that the proclamation to the imprisoned spirits happened in between Jesus’s death and resurrection.

So what of the words to the dying thief? The way that I see those words is as telling the thief what he will experience from his own perception – that as far as he is aware, the time spent from his death to his re-awakening at the general resurrection of the dead, will pass without his knowing anything about it, and will appear to happen the same day. In the circumstances of being tortured to death on a cross, Jesus can, I think, be excused for giving assurance to the repentant thief while making a simplification of what will happen, rather than going into an extended theological exposition of the state of being of the dead in between death and resurrection.

With this understanding, all the human experiences of death and resurrection are the same – for Jesus (in his human nature), for the dying thief, and for all the rest of us. Death; imperceptible passage of time (which would fit in with the concept of Sheol as outlined by Jade Constable); for Jesus resurrection after three days as the firstfruits of the resurrection, for the rest of us resurrection at the general resurrection to judgement and the life of the world to come (as appropriate ).

Angus

[ 16. January 2014, 13:29: Message edited by: A.Pilgrim ]
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I don’t think that there is any validity in linking together, as Freddy did, 1Peter 3:18-20 and 1Peter 4:5-6.

...I’m not convinced by proposing a connection between any supposed ‘lower parts of the earth’ and the location of the ‘imprisoned spirits’ of 1Peter 3:18-20 in the gloomy dungeon of Tartarus (2Pet.2:4).

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