Did Jesus Christ Descend into Hell Before He Was Resurrected?

The following is a transcribed Video Q&A, so the text may not read like an edited article would. Scroll to the bottom to view this video in its entirety.  

I remember growing up, even as a non-Christian, in the church and sometimes they would read the Apostles Creed. There is a later edition that says, “and he descended into hell”. I always wondered about that. And after I became a Christian that was one of the first questions I had. I began reading through the Scriptures and came to 1 Peter 3 where it speaks about Christ. After his death he was “made alive in the Spirit” (v18) and then in verse 19 “in which he proclaimed to the spirits in prison” and then it goes on to talk about these spirits who are imprisoned and disobeyed in the days of Noah. What is going on here?

We always wonder what happened to Christ for those three days after he died on the cross. What appears to happen is that when Christ died on the Cross his spirit descended to Hades or the place of the dead. I don’t think it is right to call it hell. That seems to be something that is coming later. Hell isn’t something that is now it is the Lake of Fire that will one day come. So, Hades is the place of the dead and so apparently (according to 1 Peter, Jude and 2 Peter) there were angels who did something bad in the days of Noah and were resigned to a place. Remember when Jesus was casting out demons and they say, “don’t send us to that place, put us in the pigs instead”. This tells us there was a place the demons knew about that they didn’t want to go to. It appears that this is where Jesus went during that time after he died and he proclaimed victory. That he had, through his death and coming resurrection, that he had defeated sin, Satan, and death and their condemnation was certain. And then on the third day after his crucifixion he rose from the dead.  

Now there are some preachers today who will say he descended into hell and there He received all this different stuff. That is just not in the Bible at all. It appears that what happened is he went to that place and proclaimed the gospel—in the sense that this is what happened and judgment is now certain. 

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