To Those in the Tombs, Restoring Life...
A Reflection on Holy Saturday, and the Old Testament Faithful
“The Creator came into the world…tearing open the belly of hell, he granted the resurrection to us mortals…
Laying low the dominion of death on the day of his resurrection…as mighty God, exalted us with himself…
therefore we praise him forever…”
[Canon of Pascha: Ode 8; Theotokia]
“Thou didst descend into the tomb, O Immortal; thou didst destroy the power of death. In victory didst thou rise, O Christ Our God…and bestowing resurrection to the fallen.”
[Paschal Hours: Kontakion][1]
***
Christian tradition is clear that Christ ‘descended to the dead’. We have many attestations of this in the early creeds of the Church:
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.[Nicaean Creed ]
He suffered for our salvation;
he descended to hell;
he arose from the dead;
he ascended to heaven;
he is seated at the Father's right hand;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead[Athanasian Creed]
While Christ’s descent into Hades and his subsequent victory over Death and the Grave in his resurrection is common knowledge in Christian circles, perhaps a more uncommon, or at-least speculative aspect of the descent is what exactly he got up while he was down there, and what it means for our doctrine of salvation and the resurrection. One element in this discussion is the question of the redemption of the Old Testament saints, a question which I myself have, for a long time, certainly pondered.
In this article, I want to put forward some of my thoughts, and the thoughts of others, to try and piece together a glimpse into what we can say about this vague aspect of the descendit ad inferna
***
For the longest time, Christian tradition has associated Christ’s descent into the underworld and his resurrection (Eph. 4:9) with the ‘Harrowing of Hades’, wherein Christ frees the Old Testament saints from the clutches of the underworld, and takes them to their promised rest with himself in the presence of the Father.
While one may be stumped to find a clear NT passage that highlights such a tradition, [I’ll leave 1 Pet. 3:19-22; 4:5-6 for a later discussion], this understanding of the resurrection has long been associated with many passages in the Psalms, which point to an Old Testament hope in the victorious “King of Glory” entering into the Underworld in an act of war against the forces of evil and redeeming his saints from their power.
In this interpretation, the “gates of Hades” are broken down by the victorious Christ, who enters in to ransack the enemy and his territory. There are a few references to these very “gates” within the Old Testament which may give credence to this ancient Christian interpretation, and also serve as a good starting point for our discussion:
Psalm 24
Lift up your heads, O gates,
and rise up, O ancient gateways,
that the king of glory may enter.
Who is the king of glory?
Yahweh, strong and mighty;
Yahweh, mighty in war!
Lift up your heads, O gates,
and lift up, O ancient gateways,
that the king of glory may enter.
Who is the king of glory?
Yahweh of hosts,
He is the king of glory!
(Psalm 24:7-10)
While most scholarly interpretations of Ps. 24 render the psalm as either a historical procession of the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem or a festival hymn of Yahweh’s enthronement in Israel, Alan Cooper suggests a more cosmological element within the Psalm, referring to the descent of God into the underworld.[2]
Cooper notes that the description of the gates as פִּתְחֵ֣י עוֹלָ֑ם patachi olam “eternal gates” in Ps. 24:7 corresponds to the Israelite concept of the בֵּ֣ית עוֹלָמ֔וֹ beyt olamu “eternal home” as a name for the realm of the dead (cf. Ecc. 12:5c) and thus relates them to a broader ancient understandings of the underworld:
“Since the Hebrew עוֹלָ֑ם olam ‘eternal, ancient’ is the equivalent of Egyptian da.at, it seems reasonable to claim that the פִּתְחֵ֣י עוֹלָ֑ם patachi olam of Psalm 24 are, in fact, identical to the gates of da.at [thus] the ‘eternal gates’ are thus none other than the gates of the underworld”
Coopers notes two mythical texts which provide this Ancient Near Eastern background;
The descent of Horus’ representative into the underworld;
Horus has commanded: "Lift up your faces and look at him....
Get out of the way, you wardens of your gates, for him in front of me; clear the way for him.
Let him pass by, O you who dwell in the underworld, wardens of the House of Osiris."
(Coffin Texts; Spell #312)
Baal’s command to the cowering gods at his entrance and his proposal to enter the underworld;
Raise up, O gods, your heads
From upon your knees,
From your princely thrones.
I will answer the messengers of the Deep, The delegation of the Infernal River.
The gods raise their heads
From upon their knees,
From their princely thrones.
(UT 137.27, 29.)
Both of these texts present an Ancient Near Eastern understanding, by which Cooper proposes to translate Ps. 24:7,9 as;
“Rear your heads, O gates!
Be exalted, O gates of the netherworld!
The King of Glory would enter!”
In this, Cooper suggests that Ps. 24:7-10 represents a fragment of an Old Testament ‘descent myth’, “in which God, forsaking his ordinary domain, descends to the netherworld, where he confronts the demonic forces of the infernal realm.”[4] This is highly reminiscent of the descent and resurrection of Christ and his proclamation to the defeated “spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:19). Viewed in this light, Ps. 24:7-10 may serve as an allusion within the Old Testament of an expectation of Yahweh’s final destruction of the power of the underworld.
In ascribing to Yahweh power over death, as the true “king of Glory” and the “Lord of Hosts” (cf. Amos 5:2; Ps. 139: 7-9), Psalm 24:7-10 portrays God’s total authority over both the realm of life and death and shows him to be the supreme God and true ruler of the universe.[4] It further portrays an eschatological hope of Yahweh’s final destruction of the realm of death, and final victory that is won, once and for all, via the death and resurrection of Christ.
This is certainly in mind in perhaps my favourite, though little known Creed from the Council of Sirmium:
"He was crucified and he died, and he descended to Hell
there he ruled all things
The gatekeepers of Hell, seeing him, were terrified.
After three days he was resurrected from Hell...."
(Council of Sirmium, 359 AD.)
Psalm 68
This understanding fits nicely with Paul’s quoting of Ps. 68, which has in view the leading shattering of the forces of the underworld, and God’s leading of captives from the realm of the underworld. Ps. 68 begins with the victorious words:
“Let God arise, and His enemies be scattered;
Let those who hate Him flee before Him.”
(Ps. 68:1)
Firstly, we note that the phrase Ἀναστήτω ὁ θεός anastayto ho theos ‘Arise O’ God’ uses the verb ἀνίστημι anistaymi ‘I rise [from the dead]’ used throughout the NT. Because of this, these words have long been associated with the resurrection of Christ, and are still used today in the Orthodox church as the opening words of the Paschal Stichera, marking the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
Throughout the remainder of the Psalm the author depicts Yahweh as ‘holy in victory’, leading a string of defeated spiritual captives, and returning the desolate in bondage to their enteral home, having brought about the ‘escape from death’ itself:
God gives the desolate a home;
With courage he leads them out of bondage…
The Lord is holy in victory.
You have ascended on high; you have led away captives.
Our God is a God of deliverances,
and to the Yahweh the Lord belong escapes from death….
(Ps. 68:7, 17b-18, 20)
When applied to Jesus, as we see the apostle Paul do (Eph. 4:8), Christ is viewed as the victorious ruler, scattering his enemies and leading a plethora of captives as he rises from the dead in his ascension into the heavens. The wording of Ps. 68 fits with Peter’s portrait of Christ declaring victory over the imprisoned spirits of darkness in Tartarus;
being put to death in the flesh,
and now made alive in the spirit,
in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.
Because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah…”
(1 Pet. 3:18b-20)
And likewise with Paul’s later image of Christ leading a great victory procession of the powers of darkness, putting them to public shame in his victory over sin and death:
“Having disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a display of them in public, triumphing over them by it.”
(Col. 2:15)
Christ ascends to the right hand of the Father, wherein the King of Glory, having entered into death itself and “trampling down death by death” (Paschal Troparion)[3], enters once more into his glory in the heavens, and is “seated at the right hand of the Power” (Mk. 14:62; Dan. 7:13) with all powers and authorities subject under him (1 Pet. 3:22; Eph 1:21).
For this reasons, the resurrected Christ declares;
“I am the first and the last, and the one who lives, and I was dead, and behold, I am living ⌊forever and ever⌋, and I hold the keys of death and of Hades.”
(Rev 1:17b-18)
Which, as G.K. Beale notes, “[shows] that through the victory of the resurrection, Christ became king even over the realm of the dead in which he was formerly imprisoned. Now, not only is he no longer held in deaths bonds but he also holds sway over who is released and retained in that realm.”[4]
Indeed, as the prophet Hosea states:
From the hand of Hades I will rescue,
and from death I will ransom them.
Where is your penalty, O death?
Where is your sting, O Hades?
(Hos. 13:14; LXX)
With Christ reigning over all, both life and death, St. Paul can declare;
Death is swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?
(1 Cor. 15:54b-55)
Psalm 107
He brought them out of darkness and gloom,
and tore off their bonds.
Let them give thanks to Yahweh for his loyal love
and his wonderful deeds for the children of humankind,
for he shatters the doors of bronze,
and cuts through the bars of iron.
(Ps. 107:14b-16)
This victory and authority over Death and Hades is paralleled in the imagery of Ps. 107, which portrays Yahweh as ‘breaking the bronze gates’ of the underworld and ‘delivering his people from the bonds of darkness’ (v. 10), leading them to “the city” (v. 7). As well as achieving victory over the spiritual powers, Christ authority over Death and Hades allows him to transfer the righteous dead, previously held within ‘the bosom of Abraham’ (Lk. 16:22-26) in Hades, to heaven and his presence, which is now the right of all believers in Christ; “If we die with Christ…we will also live with him (Rom. 6:8).
As Paul states, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). This, likewise, paves the way for the future resurrection of the righteous. As Peter proclaims in his Pentecost sermon; “God raised him up, having brought to an end the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by them.” (Acts 2:24)
Indeed, when Christ dies upon the cross, Matthew records a foretaste of this reality:
And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised and coming out of the tombs at his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
(Matt. 27:52-53)
While Matthew’s words refer here to a historical happening, alongside the tearing of the curtain and the ‘great earthquake’ both at the death of Christ and his resurrection (Matt. 27:51; 28:2) we may also imply within them a hint at a coming event of eschatological nature, wherein the “holy ones” refers to the resurrection of the righteous (cf. Dan 12:2; Jn. 5:28-30), and their “entering into the city” may refer to, not just the earthly Jerusalem, but the heavenly Jerusalem.[5]
In this, all the OT saints who had foreseen Christ in faith; the prophets and righteous ones who had “longed to see” (Matt. 13:17) the coming of Christ , awaited his victory over death and the grave, and were raised with him into heaven to be in the presence of the Lord, awaiting the coming resurrection of the last day.
***
Thus, while there is no clear passage that states, “Christ harrowed Hell and brought the captives saints to glory”, we do see that there are many passages which point to Old Testament hope that God would one day bring about the ‘harrowing of Hades’, wherein Christ plunders the underworld of its righteous dead; depriving Death and Hades of their [improper] claim over the saints, who in Christ death, have lost their sting and victory over humanity. Just as Jesus had hinted in his declaration to the apostles that “the gates of Hades will not overpower” his church. (Matt. 16:18).
As David had prayed that God would not abandon Christ to Hades, (Ps. 16:10) so too do his words point to the Old Testament hope that God would, one day, also redeem his saints from the clutches of death, and raise them to be with him in paradise, awaiting the new creation, and the resurrection of the dead:
“Surely God will ransom my life
from the ⌊power⌋ of Sheol,
because he will receive me.”
(Ps. 49:15)
“Our God is a God of deliverance;
the Lord GOD is our rescuer from death.”
(Ps. 68:20)
because your loyal love is great toward me,
and you will have delivered my life from Sheol below.
(Ps. 86:13)
Christ’ resurrection is thus the answer to both OT hopes, the breaking of the teeth of death (Ps. 58:6) and the deliverance of his saints from Sheol (Ps. 16:10).
[1] Orthodox Christian Prayers, (South Canaan: St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2023), 265, 270.
[2] Alan Cooper, “Ps 24:7-10: Mythology and Exegesis”, JBL, 102. 1 (1983), 41.
[3] Orthodox Christian Prayers, 267.
[4] G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NICGT, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 215.
[5] For further treatment, see; Kenneth L. Waters, Sr. “Matthew 27:52-53 as Apocalyptic Apostrophe: Temporal-Spatial Collapse in the Gospel of Matthew”, Journal of Biblical Literature, 122.3 (2003).