Descended Into Hell – (The Creed, Part 12)

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Watch on YouTube

I believe Jesus descended into hell. You’ll soon see all the back-to-school supplies replaced with Halloween decorations, ghosts and witches, skeletons and scary monsters. The scary movies will start coming out in the theaters or on Netflix, and the theme parks will all change over to haunted experiences. The question is, why do people get such a thrill out of being scared?

Psychologists say that it’s called the safety net experience, that you get this moment of fear and terror when someone with a mask jumps out at you and scares you, but then in your mind, you realize that, oh, they’re not really out to get me. They really can’t hurt me. And this safety net experience gives a person a sense of empowerment, even euphoria, as they feel empowered over their fear. When we talk about ghosts and monsters and people with masks, scary movies and things like that, of course those are just gimmicks. It’s not real. But we do live in a real fallen world with real terrors that prowl around real spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The devil and his fallen angels are powerful. They are terrifying, and they are not to be trifled with. In fact, when we think of fear, this is how they’ve controlled most of humanity for most of human history. By keeping people enthralled by fear, keeping people offering sacrifices to appease evil spirits and these gods all out of fear. And if there’s one thing the devil wants for us, it is to live in fear. In a sense, we’re in his playground, and he and his companions are the biggest, strongest bullies on this playground. And for most of human history, we were at his mercy until the stronger man came. Until Jesus Christ came into this world.

And that is what so neat about this moment in the Creed, when we confess that Jesus descended into hell. This is actually Jesus first step in his exaltation. He’s done with suffering. He already suffered hell on the cross. Now he is taking back his full power and glory. And the very first thing Jesus does with that is he marches right down to the devil’s own kingdom, right down into the midst of his own playground, his own throne room. He puts his foot on his head and tells him, you have no power here anymore. I’m in charge. Your reign is done.

For the Christian, when we see Jesus’ victorious descent into hell as our crucified and risen Savior, that is your safety net experience. Every time we say those words, he descended into hell. We’re looking at fear in the face and saying, we’re not afraid of you because I worship the one who made fear afraid. I worship the one who defeated the devil and death on the cross and rose victoriously Easter day. Amen.