Tag: Harrowing

A Place Called Hell

“in which He [Christ] went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” – 1 Peter 3:19

That verse from our Epistle Lesson is the typical scriptural basis for what was happening in the Apostle’s Creed line “he descended into hell.”  Ephesians 4:8-10 also contains the idea.  If both Peter and Paul hadn’t preached something like that, there is no way that line ends up in the creed. You will notice how the Nicene Creed gingerly steps around a couple of things that the Apostle’s takes head on. The Nicene states “he suffered and was buried” avoiding the apostle’s one word “died.” Like the Nicene skips right to the third day.  No mention of a harrowing of hell.  Confessionally, this all ends up in the Formula of Concord Article 9, https://bookofconcord.cph.org/en/formula-of-concord-epitome/ix_the_descent_of_christ_to_hell/. Personally, this is a doctrine that the artists get right. I have a soft spot for the cartoon-y picture nearby. Satan bound and speared by the cross. Christ leading the souls out of death’s mouth who reaches for them with that too short t-rex arm. The 2nd Adam extending his hand to help the first Adam who himself is leading Eve. If you google “harrowing of hell” and put it on image search you will see picture after picture and icon after icon very similar. The Harrowing of Hell is a triumph parade of Saints exiting what in Hebrew is Sheol.

My mind has been on Hell for a bit. Not because I’m wishing someone there.  Or even because my sins are pressing on me. Like most of these things it started with a study prep. The Augsburg Confession study with the Young Adults (does anyone like being called that? I usually say 20-somethings.  Oh to be 20-something and have all your joints still working.), anyway, the Augsburg Confession article 17 doesn’t tip-toe around anything. “He will condemn ungodly people and the devils to be tormented without end.”  It came up a 2nd time in an offhand conversation.  And in the way the algorithm works – my phone must have overheard that conversation – the next day Amazon recommends a new book which just happens to be about a modern decent into hell (R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, which 200 pages into it is really good). And thinking a bit more, it’s a doctrine that you never hear directly preached from the pulpit.  For all the cliches about fire and brimstone preaching, I’ve never heard one on the doctrine itself, nor do I remember preaching one.  Which probably reflects the emphasis of seminary – “stick to the gospel.”

But if you take that advice to the extreme – ignoring confessions, creeds and Jesus himself – you end up with a weak universalism. “God’s too good of a guy to send anyone to hell.  Hell has to be empty, well, maybe except for Hitler.” This is not the strong form of apokatastatis, the philosophical idea that all things will eventually be reconciled to God in Christ, even Satan. The church has never completely condemned that, but she also has never preached it. It isn’t in the bible. We can’t preach it.  And if Jesus, the only man who has ever been there and returned, says things like “I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Lk. 12:5 ESV)” philosophical reflection doesn’t give the comfort. Do you really want to spend untold ages in torment waiting for the final reconciliation of all things?  Today is the day of grace. Believe in Christ, today.

I see that my word count is at the end.  I had intended a bit more about history and concept of: Sheol, the bosom of Abraham, the underworld, the distinctions between Hades and Tartarus. An abode of the dead is a universal idea. It is a vanishingly small number of people, all from the last 200 years, that would say “sorry, this is it.” Even the ancient materialists would say it all comes back, it is all an eternal return. But maybe not knowing much about hell beyond – “you don’t want to find yourself there” – is all we really need. And if you don’t want to find yourself there, I have good news. Christ has won.  And he’s given you the victory. Satan’s arrows broken lie, destroyed hell’s fiercest weapon. The gates of Heaven are open. Today.

Notes on a Saturday

(Note: This was a piece I wrote while I was a pastor at St. Mark’s Lutheran in West Henrietta, NY. I forgot to import it over to here when I brought over my sermon file. Luckily it was on the internet archive and I was able to recover it. It came to mind in bible study at Mt. Zion in Peoria, AZ when asked a question dealing with the flood and sheol.)

The scriptures are rather silent about today. The Nicene creed goes from “he suffered and was buried” to “and on the third day he rose”. Notice how the Nicene creed even skips the flat declaration of Good Friday, he died. The apostle’s creed though states it “was crucified, died and was buried”. The east, the seat of the Nicene dealt with what we would call Nestorian sensitivities. The west, the seat of the apostles, was clearer. That apostle’s creed continues with the line “he descended into hell”. It is a line that has baffled moderns for a long time. A bafflement that I think stems from an obscuring of the scriptural teaching. Not a loss but a shift of emphasis. The creedal hope is resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. The obscuring is something like my eternal soul goes to be with Jesus. Going to be with Jesus is true, and it is comforting, but it obscures the real hope. Our hope is that in Christ we will attain the resurrection of the dead and life in the age to come. The descent into hell, only really attested to scripturally in 1 Peter 3:18-20, is for a single purpose.

Like I often say about Pentecost, Easter did something. It actually did many things, but I’m focusing on

one thing here. What Peter says is Christ “proclaiming to the spirits in prison”, the artists have a very clear image of. My favorite is the hymn verse from Hark the Glad Sound. He comes the prisoners to release/In Satan’s bondage held/The gates of brass before him burst/the iron fetters yield. (Hark the Glad Sound LSB349). But visually the iconographers have it. I’ve placed a few around this post. This is the harrowing of hell. The psalmist would talk of “going down to the pit”. The word that usually stands behind that is sheol. And it is one of those difficult to translate words because our conceptual framework has shifted. The KJV often just translated it as hell. Except for the pagan undertones you might say underworld or abode of shades. Before Good Friday and Easter that flaming sword keeping us out of Paradise was there. We were in bondage to the spirits of this dark realm. What descent into hell means is the victory parade of the faithful souls out of sheol to be with Christ. Adam and Noah and Abraham and Jacob and David and Sarah and Ruth and Leah and Rahab and you get the picture. In fact look at this picture and you see the crown on the one soul. That is not the “crown of life” which would simply be the nimbus or the halo, but the representation of David, freed by his Royal Son.


The is the harrowing of hell, a term I think that needs to come back into everyday usage. If we talk of a harrowing, it is an escape, a jailbreak by divine means, from situations that we got ourselves into and can’t get out of. When we confess that he descended into hell, we confess that Christ has come to our lowest point and brought us out. That lowest point is death to sin. Appropriately Peter continues in that next verse (1 Peter 3:21-22) to talk about baptism. Baptism is our harrowing. Every remembrance of our baptism (confession & absolution, confirmation, awakenings through life) are a harrowing. We have been harrowed out of the chains we often put ourselves in. This last painting I think gets at the core of this victory parade. That carved out tomb was deeper than we can imagine. But Christ has knocked in the doors. Satan is beaten to the side, and the saints marched out from the tomb with Christ. We too will rest in that tomb. But unlike those in former days, we rest with Christ. And we rest in the certain hope of a resurrection like his. A Harrowing is a victory parade. It goes past Calvary and the grave, but like going to Jerusalem it is uphill all the way singing the Halleluiahs.

Harrowhell3