2025 - Apostles Creed - Crucified Dead Buried Descended into Hell

Isaiah 53:1-12    -    14 September 2025

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This morning we come to a most crucial line in the creed / After saying 

“He suffered under Pontius Pilate” / the Creed goes on to say 

“was crucified / died / and was buried / he descended to the dead”

And the death of Jesus is unquestionably the most crucial doctrine for us

* we commemorate it every single Sunday / in the Holy Communion

* every preacher worth his salt / aspires to know nothing 

except Jesus Christ and Him crucified

* each believer hopes that she will never boast about anything

except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ

 

And with regards to His death / the creed first says “He was crucified”

Crucifixion was the most cruel / of all punishments

It is bloody / It is grotesque

Of course / the crucifixion inflicted pain / The English word

“excruciating” is derived from the cruelty of the crucifixion

But the horror of the crucifixion went beyond pain

It was sheer utter humiliation / all calculated to bring you shame

The entire thing was theatrical / the spitting / the flogging

the mocking / the nakedness / the loss of control of bodily functions

Dying by crucifixion is dying shamefully  It was a public spectacle  

If you were a Roman / you couldn’t be crucified / no matter what the offense

No single Roman was ever crucified / Roman citizens who gave trouble

were beheaded / never crucified / Crucifixion was reserved 

for people beneath the dignity of Roman citizenship

for thieves / runaway slaves / and religious agitators

Now there are theological significance for our Lord to die by crucifixion

To understand this / we need to go back in time 

to when God and His people / made a Covenant 

The way that OT Covenants were drawn up

followed the pattern of actual political treaties of those days

In those days / in the Ancient Near East 

there were what was called the suzerainty treaties 

The mighty king would make it clear to his subordinate captives 

that if they follow the stipulations of the covenant treaty 

they will be blessed

But if they violate the stipulations of the covenant treaty

they will suffer the curse for it

And God’s covenant with His subjects / followed this pattern

One clear example is Deuteronomy 27:25 “Cursed is he who does

  not confirm to the words of this law / by doing them

Now because Jesus represented us / then / on account of our sin

  He became a covenant breaker 

Consequently / He was “cursed” / “cut off” from the presence of God

And in those days / they hung covenant-breakers from a tree 

The law required that : 

Deuteronomy 21:23 / "Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree"

And Paul connected the dots between the crucifixion of Jesus 

and this Old Testament Covenant stipulation

He says / “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

by becoming a curse for us / for it is written:

“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” / Gal 3:13

If Jesus had died by stoning 

this “curse-bearing” imagery / would not be fulfilled!

The crucifixion of Jesus / placed Him / concretely 

under the OT Covenant sign / of God’s curse

On the cross / Jesus came under God’s curse / to free us from it

The second theological significance of the crucifixion is this

Forgiveness in the Old Testament sacrificial system

always required the shedding of blood

Hebrews 9:22 / “Under the law everything is purified with blood

and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”

By having His blood shed / through the piercing of nails and spear

Jesus fulfilled the typology of the Passover lamb / Ex 12

The third significance of the crucifixion 

Remember in the Book of Numbers / a bronze serpent 

was lifted up on a pole / and those who look at it were healed 

John picks this up / He said “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent

so must the Son of Man be lifted up

so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life

Jesus / by being lifted up on the cross / became the only means

by which any person / who look to Him / can be saved

Fourthly / Jesus because He was spat upon / mocked / manhandled 

and hung there naked / fulfils the prophecy of Isaiah 53

that the suffering servant would be “despised and rejected”

If He were stoned to death / that would not demonstrate 

the depth of humiliation and shame / He endured

Now when you look at it this way / you’ll come to see / that 

He wasn’t crucified off-handedly / He had to die that way

Back to the Creed / After saying He was crucified / it goes on to say he died

Now this does not mean that Jesus passively got himself killed 

That was not how He died / Rather He chose death 

He tells us / “No man takes my life from him 

      I lay it down of my own accord” / John 10:17,18

Isaiah 53 takes us / even further back in time

It tells us / that it was the will of the Father to crush Him

Now / how very unthinkable / that the One 

who is life itself should die / but the God-man died

Death as a penalty for sin / is as old as the world

* Didn’t God say to our first parents / “But of the tree of the 

knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat / for in the day 

that you eat of it you shall surely die / Gen. 2:17

* Romans 6 repeats that note: “The wages of sin is death” / v.23

But there is a vital reason / why the creed insists

on making specific mention of Christ’s suffering and death

During the time the Creed was written

there was a heretical teaching in the early church called Docetism

The word ‘Docetism’ comes from the Greek word “dokeo”

which means “to appear like” 

The Docetists insisted that Jesus “only appeared” to be human

but He was not truly human / He was a phantom / an illusion 

Like the Gnostics / the Docetists believed that matter was evil

The divine Jesus could not have been incarnated in human flesh

He had no physical body that could be crucified / Neither did He die

It wasn’t Jesus that hung on the cross 

He managed to set Himself free / and it was either 

    Judas Iscariot or Simon of Cyrene who died on the cross

It was partly to combat such a heresy / that the early church fathers

made sure that Jesus’ physical death is explicitly documented

Now / the creed goes on / to affirm that Christ not only suffered 

under Pontius Pilate / he was crucified 

And not only was He crucified / he was “buried”

Now you say “What’s the big deal?” Of course he was buried

Wasn’t He dead? Don’t you naturally bury the dead? What’s the big deal?

Well the big deal is this! And again it had to do with combating Docetism

  By categorically affirming the historicity of Jesus’ physical crucifixion

His physical death / and His physical burial

the early Christians wanted to put an end to Docetic teaching

   So the way the Creed was drawn up / strongly confirmed / that

* His suffering resulted in His crucifixion

* His crucifixion resulted in His death

* And His death was sealed and ratified / in His burial

The burial of Jesus / is a well-attested historical fact / All four gospels

affirmed / that an actual person / gave Jesus a decent burial

William Craig the apologist says / the wide majority of NT critics 

affirm the historicity of the Gospels’ assertion 

that Jesus’ corpse was interred in the tomb / of a member 

of the Jewish Sanhedrin / named Joseph of Arimathea”

It is significant / that Jesus Himself prophesied his burial / He says 

Just as Jonah was three days / three nights / in the belly 

of the great fish / so shall the Son of man be three days 

and three nights in the heart of the earth” / Matt 12: 40

And Paul in his preaching / mentioned His burial at least two times

“he was buried . . .” / 1 Cor. 15: 4

“they laid him in a tomb” / Acts 13:29

Karl Barth / the theologian / commenting on this line of the creed / says:

    “ . . . it is not there for nothing / Some day we shall be buried

Some day a company of men will process out to a churchyard 

and lower a coffin and everyone will go home

but one will not come back / and that will be me”

Burial is the terminus of every human life

It is the one-way trip we must all take 

It is God’s judgement on sin / the wages of our sin

I believe there is a pastoral purpose for mentioning his burial 

God wants to assure us / that 

* we need not fear our own death when it comes

* He will not let us go through a door 

that His Son hadn’t Himself gone through

* If we suffer / He has suffered

* If we die / He died too

* If we have to be lowered into the heart of the earth

    where it is dark and cold and all so alone

Remember / He too was buried

Because He was buried / that we can now say

“We fear nothing / for “neither death nor nor depth”

can separate us from the love of God / Romans 8

So He suffered / He was crucified / He died / and then He was buried

Now that / surely / must be the end of the journey of His soul

But no the journey of his soul has not yet ended / not in his burial

There is yet / one more lower place / He has to walk into

The ancient Creed reads “He descended into hell”

Christ Sanctuary prefers to have it read as “He descended to the dead”

We must admit that the phrase / Descensus Christi ad Inferos 

"the descent of Christ into Hell" / may potentially cause confusion

First / we need to be clear on what the descent into hell does not mean

One / it does not mean that He suffered the hellish fires of torment

Two / it does not mean that Jesus went on a rescue mission

  into the depth of hell / to salvage the souls of those who died

way before Christ was born / Those who were said to be “in limbo”

as some Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox still hold 

1 Peter 3:19 tells us that between his death and resurrection 

Jesus went down to “proclaimed to the spirits in prison” 

Let no one here conclude that He went down there to preach the gospel

Leon Morris helpfully points out that the Greek word “proclaim” there

is not “eugelion” / the normal word for “preaching” for salvation

Instead the word there is kerussein / which means “to proclaim”

Jesus did not go to the spirits in prison / to preach a post-mortem

gospel sermon to secure positive responses to the gospel

No one get a second chance / The Word of God says / “It is

appointed for man to die once / and after that comes judgment”

Instead / He went down there to make a proclamation / to declare

that He / truly is Lord / To put it crudely 

He went down there to say: “There! I told you so”

But if that’s not what His descent into hell means / what does it mean?

Let me put it this way:

A few days before the crucifixion Jesus knew well what was coming for Him

Matthew said: "He began to be sorrowful and troubled"

Mark said: "He felt deeply distressed"

He told his disciples: "Please stay here and keep watch with me"

Why? / Was he a coward? / did he lack courage?

No / it wasn't the terror of the crucifixion that made him flinch

What then was it / that He was troubled about? 

Let me put it this way / Jesus was crucified at 9 in the morning 

From 12 noon to 3 in the afternoon a strange unnatural darkness 

shrouded the land

You could never get a natural eclipse at that time of the year

It was the full moon of the Passover

And the silence was shattered by a loud cry from Jesus' mouth

There is so much force in these words / that two gospel writers 

have recorded it in the very language 

that it was actually spoken / Aramaic

“Eli / Eli / lama sabachthani?" 

  My God / my God / Why have you forsaken me?”

Now / Who can fully fathom / the deep mysteries of these words

Martin Luther once sat motionless for hours / as if in a trance

Denying himself food and drink / he remained absorbed 

in deep contemplation / Finally he stood up and exclaimed:

"God forsaken by God! Who can understand that !"

These words are so hard to understand

- some people simply deny that Jesus ever said it

- others say that it was a despairing cry of a disappointed patriot

whose political plans have failed

- the Muslims thought his cry was due to his fear of death

that it was a cry of a person who did not have moral courage 

- still others like Schleiermacher say 

that in the hour of his deepest spiritual despair

he was simply reciting the opening lines of Psalm 22

- and still there are others who say that he was 

so overwhelmed by pain / so drained of his strength 

and so crushed by the weight of human sin 

he simply felt forsaken by God / God hadn't forsaken him

But all that simply isn't true / So what seems to be happening then?

Paul helps us here / Paul explains it best when he said: “For our sake 

God made him “to be sin” / who knew no sin” / 2 Cor 5:21

Those three words /  “to be sin” / are crucial 

We must never make the mistake of saying that Jesus became a sinner

The Bible does not say that / Rather it says

God made him to BE sin for us" 2 Co 5:21

In a way we cannot fully fathom / on the cross God made Him to BE sin 

and His cry of dereliction / is an expression of His Godforsakenness

John Duncan divinity professor in Edinburgh / Scotland

more than one hundred years ago / one day in class

referring to Psalm 22:1 / asked his students: 

Do you know what it was / dying on the cross 

forsaken by His Father / Do you know what it was? 

It was damnation”

We sometimes think / that the physical torture of the crucifixion

must have been the most gruesome suffering imaginable

But in a sense / the physical suffering was a mosquito bite 

compared to what was happening to his soul

Let me put it this way

If a casual acquaintance rejects you / that hurts

If a close friend rejects you / the hurt goes deeper

If your spouse packs up / and walks out the front door / now that 

is absolutely crushing / you’ll be left in utter desolation

The more intimate the relationship the greater the grief of separation

Jesus’ relationship with the Father was infinitely endearing

It had no beginning / It went right back to all eternity

It’s the most intimate / most endearing / most devoted relationship ever

In a way we could never understand / caring the weight of all human sin

He felt forsaken by the Father / an anguish we’ll never understand

Now / Calvin believes that the cry of dereliction 

     “My God My God / Why have you forsaken me” is the best commentary    

to the statement in the Creed that says: "He descended into hell"

Calvin believes Jesus “suffered the death that God in his wrath 

had inflicted upon the wicked” / He suffered in His soul

the terrible torments of a condemned and forsaken man” (II.16.10)

He said / “Surely no more terrible abyss / can be conceived 

than to feel yourself forsaken and estranged from God; 

and when you call upon him, not to be heard. 

It is as if God himself had plotted your ruin”  (II.16.11)

The psalmist / so long ago / put words in our Lord’s mouth

Ps 22 / “My God My God why have you forsaken me?

I am poured out like water / and all my bones are out of joint

my heart is like wax / it is melted within my breast

my strength is dried up like a potsherd

   and my tongue sticks to my jaws 

you lay me in the dust of death” / Ps 22:1,14,15

But just as strongly as Calvin emphasizes our Lord’s Godforsakenness

He rightly says / we need to equally emphasise the fact

that the Father was never angry with the Son

that the Father continued to love the Son / even on the cross

that there was never a rupture in the Trinity

And indeed / we need to remember / that though Christ may agonise 

over His existential sense of loss of the Father’s presence

that does not mean / that there was 

an actual ontological rupture in the Trinity

Keller says / “Perhaps we could go so far as to say that 

the Father never loved His Son 

more than when he was dying to save us”

All right / much more can be said about Christ’s descent into the dead

But we’ll have to leave it there for now

Moving on / a question that has quite frequently been asked is this:

“Because the due punishment for sin is eternal damnation

why wasn’t Jesus subjected / to an eternity of damnation? 

How could six hours of anguish / pay for an eternity of judgement?

The answer given right through church history / is that 

He may have only suffered for a finite amount of time 

but the worth / weightiness / gravitas / of the atonement 

was of such infinite measure / that God accepted it

as a sufficient payment / for the penalty that was owed

Jesus’ atonement was of such enduring magnitude / it is sufficient 

to both “cover” and “satisfy” the demand for eternal punishment

The question is never about the duration which the payment takes

It is all about the completion and sufficiency of the payment

Christ / as an infinite being / paid infinitely for our sin

without the need to spend an eternity of time doing that

Joel Beeke says / what He descended into 

is nothing short of the essence of hell . . . It is a time 

so compacted / so infinite / so horrendous / as to be

incomprehensible and seemingly unsustainable

In this one atoning act / Jesus became fully a curse for us

He fully paid for what was owed / to satisfy God’s justice

* This is why / when He was about to breath His last breath

He declared / tetelestai /  “It is finished” 

* His exclamation / “Father / into your hands I commit my spirit”

is further evidence that the full payment has been made

Now / how may we tie all this up?

I believe there is a pastoral note in this line of the creed for us all here

What will give us great comfort and consolation / when we 

or our loved ones stand on the verge of death / is knowing 

that our Lord has already walked through the gates of Hades

and He walked back / with the keys

He said: “I died / and behold / I am alive forevermore 

and I have the keys of Death and Hades” / Rev 1:18

If the mother of all fear / is the fear of death / here is Someone

who has dealt decisively with this predicament

So / Who is our comfort / as we sprint headlong / at breakneck speed

toward the grave?  /  It is Christ!

  

   In Christ’s death / your death has died 

    In Christ’s death / your story does not end in a vale of tears

     Your story ends with “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”

    In Christ’s death / you will not be left forgotten in the grave

             Instead / you will die a stingless death 

    you will stand over a defeated grave

In Christ’s death / you do not have 70 or 80 miserable years

      only to end up with a pulverised body entombed in the earth

   Your story will end in your resurrection to life everlasting

Time will merge into eternity / Death shall me no more

and you will dwell in the House of the Lord forever

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