Jesus Descended to Hell: A Historical, Scriptural, Modern, and Pastoral Treatment

[Trump Gurl]

And to you, too. And me. And if we tell people a false gospel, we are locking them out of heaven.. . . . .

Well . . . . I think God is a bit more merciful than that.

This topic, Jesus preaching in hell, is very interesting, but does not really change the Gospel message, If a person believes the core message, then the rest is gravy.

Look at it this way: Catholics and Protestants believe the core message but differ on tons of other stuff. Surely God would not send all Catholics or all Protestants (depending on who has it right) to hell over their errors as long as they were honest errors and not intentional, right?

Now, as for the people who, purposely blind themselves to truth and promote error, that's another story.

It seems that if “It is finished” means anything, then Jesus finished His salvific work on the cross.

If you are open to another POV, Dr. Scott Hahn's study on The 4th Cup is amazing and fascinating

 

[Derf]

Well . . . . I think God is a bit more merciful than that.

You think His will save us with a false gospel?

This topic, Jesus preaching in hell, is very interesting, but does not really change the Gospel message, If a person believes to core message, then the rest is gravy.

I agree there are core and non-core issues. And Jesus preaching in hell is non-core. But I'm not so sure about the salvific work in hell part.

Look at it this way: Catholics and Protestants believe the core message but differ on tons of other stuff. Surely God would not send all Catholics or all Protestants (depending on who has it right) to hell over their errors as long as they were honest errors and not intentional, right?

Is it still an "honest error" if we are given evidence to the contrary and we dismiss it?

If you are open to another POV, Dr. Scott Hahn's study on The 4th Cup is amazing and fascinating

I'll take a look when I have time.

 

[Trump Gurl]

You think His will save us with a false gospel?

You and me? No. We know to much. Others? Yes.

I agree there are core and non-core issues. And Jesus preaching in hell is non-core. But I'm not so sure about the salvific work in hell part.

I think he "preached" in Sheol. I don't think he did anything salvific there. Or is preaching what you meant.

Is it still an "honest error" if we are given evidence to the contrary and we dismiss it?

Oh boy, maybe we should not go there, or else we might start telling each other that we have given the other guy the truth and they rejected it.

 

[Derf]

You and me? No. We know to much. Others? Yes.

I can't see how He can save anyone with a false gospel. "For there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved."

He might save some in spite of the false gospels Satan is promoting. But He only saves by the blood of Christ.

I think he "preached" in Sheol. I don't think he did anything salvific there. Or is preaching what you meant.

Then you need to read your article more thoroughly, as he made that claim.

Oh boy, maybe we should not go there, or else we might start telling each other that we have given the other guy the truth and they rejected it.

Again, that’s the benefit of having people check our work—in case we speak falsely. If we speak error, and then just say it doesn’t matter, we become both prosecutor and judge of ourselves, and that means we’re not willing for God to correct us through others.

 

[Trump Gurl]

I can't see how He can save anyone with a false gospel

God can save whoever he wants to save. He is God.

Question: A little Buddhist boy lives in a remote, isolated Chinese village. He dies very young and never heard of Jesus. Does God send him to Hell?

"For there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved."

That is the name that would save the little boy, even though the little boy does not know it.

He might save some in spite of the false gospels Satan is promoting. But He only saves by the blood of Christ.

There it is.

Again, that’s the benefit of having people check our work—in case we speak falsely

That is not how I do things. This is what I believe:

Jesus gave the authority to teach and baptize (Matt 28:16-20) and to "bind and loose" (Matt 18:18, Matt 16:18-19) and the authority to forgive sins (John 20:23) were given to the Apostles.

That authority has been handed down to the bishops.

Authority to Teach

How were early Christians to know who was teaching the truth? Was there a way to discern who was teaching Christ’s truth and who was not? There was.

www.catholic.com

The Pope and the Bishops today have that authority to teach, and bind & loose doctrine.

Does Christ's Church Have Apostolic Succession?

Apostolic succession is the idea that Catholic bishops today are successors of the apostles Jesus appointed to go into all the world and preach the gospel.

www.catholic.com

That's what I believe and I won't even debate to matter, so please let's not go down that road. I already know that you reject that belief, and I am saying that I believe it and there is not one word that anybody could ever say in this forum to alter that belief in the slightest.

 

[Derf]

God can save whoever he wants to save. He is God.

Question: A little Buddhist boy lives in a remote, isolated Chinese village. He dies very young and never heard of Jesus. Does God send him to Hell?



That is the name that would save the little boy, even though the little boy does not know it.



There it is.



That is not how I do things. This is what I believe:

Jesus gave the authority to teach and baptize (Matt 28:16-20) and to "bind and loose" (Matt 18:18, Matt 16:18-19) and the authority to forgive sins (John 20:23) were given to the Apostles.

That authority has been handed down to the bishops.

Authority to Teach

How were early Christians to know who was teaching the truth? Was there a way to discern who was teaching Christ’s truth and who was not? There was.

www.catholic.com

The Pope and the Bishops today have that authority to teach, and bind & loose doctrine.

Does Christ's Church Have Apostolic Succession?

Apostolic succession is the idea that Catholic bishops today are successors of the apostles Jesus appointed to go into all the world and preach the gospel.

www.catholic.com

That's what I believe and I won't even debate to matter, so please let's not go down that road. I already know that you reject that belief, and I am saying that I believe it and there is not one word that anybody could ever say in this forum to alter that belief in the slightest.

But Jesus tells us (and the pope and bishops) what we’re supposed to be teaching:
Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV) 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations...20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...

 

[Trump Gurl]

But Jesus tells us (and the pope and bishops) what we’re supposed to be teaching:
Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV) 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations...20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...

I agree.
BUT: Even though we are all called upon to be a witness and to spread the word and all that, when it comes to doctrinal disputes and the authority to decide between right and wrong doctrine, that falls to the bishops.

That is what the great councils were all about. In fact, the fist council is actually in the Bible, in Acts, the Council of Jerusalem. Long story short, everyone was arguing about whether or not Christians have to be circumcised. The council, with Peter, among them, decided that Christians do not need to be baptized. They exercised their authority to "bind and loose", and ever since then, Christians have not needed to be circumcised.

The councils that followed are:

Nicaea I, 325 AD
Pope Sylvester I, 314-335
Emperor Constantine, 306-337
Decisions: Condemned Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ (elements of Arianism have reappeared in our own time); defined the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son; fixed the date for Easter; began formulation of Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Constantinople I, 381 AD
Pope Damasus I, 366-384
Emperor Theodosius, 379-395
Decisions: Recondemned Arianism; condemned Macedonianism, which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit; completed the formulation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Ephesus, 431 AD
Pope Celestine I, 422-432
Emperor Theodosius II, 408-450
Decisions: Condemned Nestorianism, which denied the unity of the divine and human in Christ; defined that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos), a doctrine denied by the Nestorians and by most of today’s Protestants; condemned Pelagianism, which held that man could earn his own salvation through his natural powers.

Chalcedon, 451 AD
Pope Leo the Great, 440-461
Emperor Marcian, 450-457
Decisions: Condemned Monophysitism (also called Eutychianism), which denied Christ’s human nature.

Constantinople II, 553 AD
Pope Vigilius, 537-555
Emperor Justinian I, 527-565
Decisions: Condemned the Three Chapters, writings tainted by Nestorianism and composed by Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyr, and Ibas of Edessa.

Constantinople III, 680 AD
Pope Agatho, 678-681
Emperor Constantine IV, 668-685
Decisions: Condemned Monothelitism, which held Christ had but one will, the divine (this heresy arose as a reaction to the monophysite heresy); censured Pope Honorius I for a letter in which he made an ambiguous but not infallible statement about the unity of operations in Christ (an episode commonly used by anti-Catholic writers as an argument against papal infallibility, but for the real meaning, see Catholicism and Fundamentalism, pages 227-229).

Nicaea II, 787 AD
Pope Hadrian I, 772-795
Emperor Constantine VI, 780-797
Decisions: Condemned iconoclasm (which was mainly confined to the East), a heresy that held that the use of images constituted idolatry; condemned Adoptionism, which held that Christ was not the Son of God by nature but only by adoption, thereby denying the hypostatic union.

Constantinople IV, 869 AD
Pope Hadrian II, 867-872
Emperor Basil, 867-886
Decisions: Recondemned Adoptionism; deposed Photius as patriarch of Constantinople, thereby ending the Photian Schism, but this did not completely remove disaffections between the West and the East (in 1054 came the final break, when the Eastern Orthodox Churches broke away from unity with Rome).

Lateran I, 1123 AD
Pope Callistus II, 1119-1124
Emperor Henry V, 1105-1125
Decisions: Confirmed the Concordat of Worms (1122), in which the Pope and Emperor sought to end the dispute over investiture (the attempt by the secular powers to assume authority in appointing bishops; this was a main source of Church/state friction during the Middle Ages).

Lateran II, 1139 AD
Pope Innocent II, 1130-1143
Emperor Conrad III, 1138-1152
Decisions: Ended a papal schism by antipope Anacletus II; reaffirmed baptism of infants; reaffirmed the sacramental nature of the priesthood, marriage, and the Eucharist against Medieval heretics; decreed that holy orders is an impediment to marriage, making the attempted marriage of a priest invalid.

Lateran III, 1179 AD
Pope Alexander III, 1159-1181
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, 1152-1190
Decisions: Regulated papal elections by requiring a two-thirds vote of the cardinals (see in this issue the article by Canon Francis J. Ripley, page 27); condemned Waldensianism and Albigensianism, a form of Manichaeanism (an ancient heresy that held that matter is evil; Albigensians opposed the authority of the state and of the Church, opposed the sacrament of matrimony, and practiced ritual suicide; despite these tenets, many anti-Catholics believe Albigensianism was the continuation of “real Christianity” during the Middle Ages and was a forerunner of Protestantism).

Lateran IV, 1215 AD
Pope Innocent III, 1198-1216
Emperor Otto IV, 1209-1215
Decisions: Ordered annual reception of penance and the Eucharist; used the term “transubstantiation” to explain the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist; adopted further canons against the Albigensians.

Lyons I, 1245 AD
Pope Innocent IV, 1243-1254
Emperor Frederick II, 1220-1250
Decisions: Excommunicated and deposed Frederick II for heresy and crimes against the Church.

Lyons II, 1274 AD
Pope Gregory X, 1271-1276
Emperor Rudolf I, 1273-1291
Decisions: Effected only temporary union of the Eastern Churches with the Roman Church; promulgated regulations for conclaves.

Vienne, 1311 AD
Pope Clement V, 1305-1314
Emperor Henry VII, 1308-1313
Decisions: Suppressed the Knights Templars; issued decrees on the reform of morals.

Constance, 1414 AD
Popes Gregory XII, 1406-1415
Emperor Sigismund, 1410-1437
Decisions: Ended the Great Schism, which involved three rival claimants to the papacy (see in this issue the article by Canon Francis J. Ripley, page 27); opposed the teachings of John Wycliffe, who taught sola scriptura, denied the authority of the pope and bishops, denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and wrote against penance and indulgences; condemned as a heretic John Huss, who denied papal authority and taught wrongly about the nature of the Church and who was burned at the stake in 1415 (in 1457 his followers established what became known commonly as the Moravian Church, which was the first independent Protestant church).

Florence, 1438-1443 AD
Pope Eugene IV, 1431-1447
Emperors: Albert II, 1438-1439
Frederick III, 1440-1493
Decisions: Reaffirmed papal primacy against claims of conciliarists that an ecumenical council is superior to a pope; approved reunion with several Eastern Churches, but the reunion was only temporary.

Lateran V, 1512-1517 AD
Popes Julius II, 1503-1513
Leo X, 1513-1521
Emperor Maximilian I, 1493-1519
Decisions: Opposed erroneous teachings about the soul; reaffirmed the doctrine of indulgences; restated the relationship between popes and ecumenical councils; on the eve of the Protestant Reformation, failed to inaugurate an authentic and thoroughgoing reform of the Church, inadvertently helping Protestantism.

Trent, 1545-1549, 1551-1552, 1562-1563 AD
Popes Paul III, 1534-1549
Julius III, 1550-1555
Pius IV, 1559-1565
Emperors Charles V, 1519-1558
Ferdinand I, 1558-1564
Decisions: Affirmed Catholic doctrines against the errors of the Protestant Reformers; reaffirmed teachings on the role of the Bible and Tradition, grace, sin, justification by faith (but not by “faith alone”), the Mass as a real sacrifice, purgatory, indulgences, jurisdiction of the pope; initiated the Counter-Reformation; reformed the clergy and morals; promoted religious instruction; ordered the establishment of seminaries for the future training of priests.

Vatican I, 1869-1870 AD
Pope Pius IX, 1846-1878
Decisions: Defined papal infallibility and primacy; condemned errors regarding the relationship between faith and reason (the council was cut short by war, its work to be taken up again by Vatican II).

Vatican II, 1962-1965 AD
Popes John XXIII, 1958-1963
Paul VI, 1963-1978
Decisions: Issued pastoral documents on the renewal and reform of the Church, intending the make the Church more effective in dealing with the contemporary world.

 

[Derf]

I agree.
BUT: Even though we are all called upon to be a witness and to spread the word and all that, when it comes to doctrinal disputes and the authority to decide between right and wrong doctrine, that falls to the bishops.

That is what the great councils were all about. In fact, the fist council is actually in the Bible, in Acts, the Council of Jerusalem. Long story short, everyone was arguing about whether or not Christians have to be circumcised. The council, with Peter, among them, decided that Christians do not need to be baptized. They exercised their authority to "bind and loose", and ever since then, Christians have not needed to be circumcised.

The councils that followed are:

Nicaea I, 325 AD
Pope Sylvester I, 314-335
Emperor Constantine, 306-337
Decisions: Condemned Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ (elements of Arianism have reappeared in our own time); defined the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son; fixed the date for Easter; began formulation of Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Constantinople I, 381 AD
Pope Damasus I, 366-384
Emperor Theodosius, 379-395
Decisions: Recondemned Arianism; condemned Macedonianism, which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit; completed the formulation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Ephesus, 431 AD
Pope Celestine I, 422-432
Emperor Theodosius II, 408-450
Decisions: Condemned Nestorianism, which denied the unity of the divine and human in Christ; defined that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos), a doctrine denied by the Nestorians and by most of today’s Protestants; condemned Pelagianism, which held that man could earn his own salvation through his natural powers.

Chalcedon, 451 AD
Pope Leo the Great, 440-461
Emperor Marcian, 450-457
Decisions: Condemned Monophysitism (also called Eutychianism), which denied Christ’s human nature.

Constantinople II, 553 AD
Pope Vigilius, 537-555
Emperor Justinian I, 527-565
Decisions: Condemned the Three Chapters, writings tainted by Nestorianism and composed by Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyr, and Ibas of Edessa.

Constantinople III, 680 AD
Pope Agatho, 678-681
Emperor Constantine IV, 668-685
Decisions: Condemned Monothelitism, which held Christ had but one will, the divine (this heresy arose as a reaction to the monophysite heresy); censured Pope Honorius I for a letter in which he made an ambiguous but not infallible statement about the unity of operations in Christ (an episode commonly used by anti-Catholic writers as an argument against papal infallibility, but for the real meaning, see Catholicism and Fundamentalism, pages 227-229).

Nicaea II, 787 AD
Pope Hadrian I, 772-795
Emperor Constantine VI, 780-797
Decisions: Condemned iconoclasm (which was mainly confined to the East), a heresy that held that the use of images constituted idolatry; condemned Adoptionism, which held that Christ was not the Son of God by nature but only by adoption, thereby denying the hypostatic union.

Constantinople IV, 869 AD
Pope Hadrian II, 867-872
Emperor Basil, 867-886
Decisions: Recondemned Adoptionism; deposed Photius as patriarch of Constantinople, thereby ending the Photian Schism, but this did not completely remove disaffections between the West and the East (in 1054 came the final break, when the Eastern Orthodox Churches broke away from unity with Rome).

Lateran I, 1123 AD
Pope Callistus II, 1119-1124
Emperor Henry V, 1105-1125
Decisions: Confirmed the Concordat of Worms (1122), in which the Pope and Emperor sought to end the dispute over investiture (the attempt by the secular powers to assume authority in appointing bishops; this was a main source of Church/state friction during the Middle Ages).

Lateran II, 1139 AD
Pope Innocent II, 1130-1143
Emperor Conrad III, 1138-1152
Decisions: Ended a papal schism by antipope Anacletus II; reaffirmed baptism of infants; reaffirmed the sacramental nature of the priesthood, marriage, and the Eucharist against Medieval heretics; decreed that holy orders is an impediment to marriage, making the attempted marriage of a priest invalid.

Lateran III, 1179 AD
Pope Alexander III, 1159-1181
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, 1152-1190
Decisions: Regulated papal elections by requiring a two-thirds vote of the cardinals (see in this issue the article by Canon Francis J. Ripley, page 27); condemned Waldensianism and Albigensianism, a form of Manichaeanism (an ancient heresy that held that matter is evil; Albigensians opposed the authority of the state and of the Church, opposed the sacrament of matrimony, and practiced ritual suicide; despite these tenets, many anti-Catholics believe Albigensianism was the continuation of “real Christianity” during the Middle Ages and was a forerunner of Protestantism).

Lateran IV, 1215 AD
Pope Innocent III, 1198-1216
Emperor Otto IV, 1209-1215
Decisions: Ordered annual reception of penance and the Eucharist; used the term “transubstantiation” to explain the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist; adopted further canons against the Albigensians.

Lyons I, 1245 AD
Pope Innocent IV, 1243-1254
Emperor Frederick II, 1220-1250
Decisions: Excommunicated and deposed Frederick II for heresy and crimes against the Church.

Lyons II, 1274 AD
Pope Gregory X, 1271-1276
Emperor Rudolf I, 1273-1291
Decisions: Effected only temporary union of the Eastern Churches with the Roman Church; promulgated regulations for conclaves.

Vienne, 1311 AD
Pope Clement V, 1305-1314
Emperor Henry VII, 1308-1313
Decisions: Suppressed the Knights Templars; issued decrees on the reform of morals.

Constance, 1414 AD
Popes Gregory XII, 1406-1415
Emperor Sigismund, 1410-1437
Decisions: Ended the Great Schism, which involved three rival claimants to the papacy (see in this issue the article by Canon Francis J. Ripley, page 27); opposed the teachings of John Wycliffe, who taught sola scriptura, denied the authority of the pope and bishops, denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and wrote against penance and indulgences; condemned as a heretic John Huss, who denied papal authority and taught wrongly about the nature of the Church and who was burned at the stake in 1415 (in 1457 his followers established what became known commonly as the Moravian Church, which was the first independent Protestant church).

Florence, 1438-1443 AD
Pope Eugene IV, 1431-1447
Emperors: Albert II, 1438-1439
Frederick III, 1440-1493
Decisions: Reaffirmed papal primacy against claims of conciliarists that an ecumenical council is superior to a pope; approved reunion with several Eastern Churches, but the reunion was only temporary.

Lateran V, 1512-1517 AD
Popes Julius II, 1503-1513
Leo X, 1513-1521
Emperor Maximilian I, 1493-1519
Decisions: Opposed erroneous teachings about the soul; reaffirmed the doctrine of indulgences; restated the relationship between popes and ecumenical councils; on the eve of the Protestant Reformation, failed to inaugurate an authentic and thoroughgoing reform of the Church, inadvertently helping Protestantism.

Trent, 1545-1549, 1551-1552, 1562-1563 AD
Popes Paul III, 1534-1549
Julius III, 1550-1555
Pius IV, 1559-1565
Emperors Charles V, 1519-1558
Ferdinand I, 1558-1564
Decisions: Affirmed Catholic doctrines against the errors of the Protestant Reformers; reaffirmed teachings on the role of the Bible and Tradition, grace, sin, justification by faith (but not by “faith alone”), the Mass as a real sacrifice, purgatory, indulgences, jurisdiction of the pope; initiated the Counter-Reformation; reformed the clergy and morals; promoted religious instruction; ordered the establishment of seminaries for the future training of priests.

Vatican I, 1869-1870 AD
Pope Pius IX, 1846-1878
Decisions: Defined papal infallibility and primacy; condemned errors regarding the relationship between faith and reason (the council was cut short by war, its work to be taken up again by Vatican II).

Vatican II, 1962-1965 AD
Popes John XXIII, 1958-1963
Paul VI, 1963-1978
Decisions: Issued pastoral documents on the renewal and reform of the Church, intending the make the Church more effective in dealing with the contemporary world.

That’s a pretty thorough list. It shows why you can’t trust the popes and bishops without a more transcendent standard to compare their teachings to, as the RCC has wandered further from truth through the years. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Trump Gurl]

you can’t trust the popes and bishops

I find it tragic and sad when you tacitly charge Jesus Christ with either lying or factual error in Matthew 16:18-19 and 1 Tim. 3:15. May God help you in your entirely willful ignorance..

the RCC has wandered further from truth through the years

You say that because you believe false teachings and heresies and you reject Christ's authority to establish His Church in the manner that He saw fit. The Pope and the Councils are led by the Holy Spirit and when they bind and loose it is with the authority of Christ, given to them BY Christ, and the Dogmas they proclaim are Infallible. So says the Scriptures.

This discussion will quickly descend into anger. I suggest we return to the topic. Either that, or call it a day.