Today is Holy Saturday. Unfortunately, the meaning of this day has gotten lost in much of contemporary Christianity.
Today isn’t a remembrance about Jesus passively waiting in the tomb for the resurrection. In fact our Lord was at work on Holy Saturday! As the Apostle’s Creed says: “he descended to hell.” This is known as the harrowing of hell, the day when Jesus descended to hell to proclaim his victory over death and hell, and to liberate the righteous souls who had been waiting there.
The teaching comes directly from Scripture, 1 Peter 3:18-20, which tells us that “Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.”
So today is about remembering the full extent of Jesus’ redemptive work. Today we remember that the power of hell has been definitively destroyed! What a precious mystery we remember this day!
@RevEricBurrowsStone
Why were there righteous souls waiting in hell?
@dan @RevEricBurrowsStone Hell in the Bible is the place of the dead. The grave, sometimes called Hades. It doesn't mean the Dante idea of endless punishment.
@royal @dan @RevEricBurrowsStone It is useful to stop using the overloaded term hell, and start referring to the following:
– Hades: the generic abode of the dead. In Greek mythology, both the evil and the good crossed the Styx and arrived here. The righteous inhabited the Elysian Fields within Hades.
– Sheol: the Hebrew cognate of Hades; simply the abode of the dead.
– Gehenna: The place of judgment after death. This is a hellenization of a Hebrew word.
– Tartarus: The abyss of eternal punishment in Greek mythology. This term is also used in many patristic writings.
– Abaddon: the Hebrew cognate of Tartarus.
So Hades and Sheol are synonymous, Tartarus and Abaddon are synonymous, and Gehenna usually carries roughly the same connotation as Tartarus or Abaddon.
In Norse mythology, Hel is a person/place pretty much equivalent to Hades (also both a person and a place); but in English usage hell has taken on the meaning of Gehenna.
@ossobuffo @dan @RevEricBurrowsStone In this context, "hell" isn't a moral or spiritual judgment. The righteous are in the grave just as everyone else is, and Jesus visits with them because he goes to the place of the dead just as we do.
@royal @ossobuffo @dan @RevEricBurrowsStone Oh, you're saying that the term Hell can include the grave / being dead, in general?
@ossobuffo
Where does pergatory fit into this?
@golemwire @royal @RevEricBurrowsStone
@dan @golemwire @royal @RevEricBurrowsStone Purgatory is a place where the somewhat-but-not-entirely-righteous spend time being purged of their sins before they can enter Paradise.
As far as I know, the Roman Catholic Church is the only church that explicitly believes in purgatory.
Then there’s Limbo, where the unbaptized innocents and righteous dwell. It is inhabited by infants and those who lived upright lives but were never baptized. In Dante’s Divina Commedia, the Roman pre-Christian poet Virgil leaves his dwelling in Limbo (at the very entrance to hell, where there is neither torment nor bliss) to be Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory; but Virgil is unable to enter with him into Paradise.
The Roman church is likewise the only one I know of that holds to the existence of Limbo.
@golemwire @royal @dan @RevEricBurrowsStone Affirmative. Hell has multiple meanings in English. All have to do with the abode of the dead, but some indicate punishment or torment, while others simply indicate a place where the dead dwell.
In the case of the righteous souls from the Old Testament, they were waiting for the coming of the Messiah who would raise them up to eternal life. John the Baptist, who had announced Christ to the living, was himself beheaded, and announced Christ’s coming to the dead.