One of the beauties of Reformed Christianity, is the acceptance and use of the creeds. We hold to the great creeds of the Reformation, like the Westminster Confession of Faith. (For those who don’t know what a creed is, it is simply a statement of faith about what we believe. The WCF is an extended faith of what we, as Protestant Christians believe is most important to know from Scripture.)
But we also hold to the ancient Apostle’s Creed, in which Christians have been professing the central faith for about 1,800 years. It is the essential statement of what Christians believe, and when we say it together in worship, we not only are stating what we believe, but joining hands with all those who have gone on before us, and will come after us, in this great confession.
Yet, with the Apostles Creed, there is that one statement that gives a lot of people pause:
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended to hell.
Believers repeat the line: He descended into hell, after stating that Jesus suffered on the cross and died. For many, this is a troubling phrase and some refuse to say it. The thought of our Savior spending a moment in hell is repulsive. However, this comes about because of our confusion between the Hebrew word, Sheol, and the two Greek terms, Hades, and Gehenna. All three words are dealing with the afterlife.
On top of that, the Bible never says specifically states that Jesus descends into Sheol, Hades, or Gehenna. We have to imply it from what is said about the time after His death, and before the resurrection.
Therefore, to understand what we mean when we say, He descended into hell, we have to bring it all together theologically. And when we do, we will see the importance of understanding the difference between Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna. And there is a difference, especially between Sheol, Hades, and the last one, Gehenna.