Sandy Grant is the senior minister at St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. I do not know him at all, other than the fact that he serves on the writer panel at solapanel.org. However, I did find myself in full agreement with him on this article. Pastor Grant writes:

Recently on a feedback card at church, someone commented: “I thought Jesus didn’t descend into hell! Just that he suffered the death we deserved.”

The answer is: yes and no! The question raises complex issues that cannot be easily answered in a short space. So let me take a long space. (And if you are interested, read on, read slowly, and re-read if you need!)

There are a couple of complicating factors. The first is how we use the English word, ‘hell’ to translate various Hebrew and Greek words. The second is the history and meaning of the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed, “he descended into hell”. Let me now try and unpack these issues in turn.

The various uses of ‘hell’ in translating the Bible into English

The English word ‘hell’ often does double duty in translating words from the original biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek.

The Hebrew word ‘Sheol’ is pretty much a close equivalent of the Greek word, ‘Hades’. These words (especially ‘Sheol’) can refer simply to the grave, where bodies decay. But more particularly they can also refer to what I define as “the shadowy place dead souls go to await their punishment” (i.e. before the final day of judgment).

To give you an idea of the range of meaning, in the New Testament, for example, Hades is translated by the NIV variously as: Continue reading →