Josh,
Could you run the “physical sympathy with our earthly pain” thing past me? How does that square with the doctrine of “aseity” that Don Carson, for one, is fond of?

hey Rob, isn’t aseity the self-existence of God an independent existence,
The word aseity, meaning that he has life in himself and draws his unending energy from Himself (a se in Latin means “from himself”), was coined by theologians to express this truth, which the Bible makes clear. (Packer, J.I., Concise Theology, 26)
I am not sure how the fact that the cross indicates a sympathy with our earthly pain runs against aseity.
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus anticipates Golgotha. From Gethsemane to Golgotha, one image that sticks with us is the physical suffering of Jesus. In fact the writer of the Book o Hebrews explains something many Christians miss when it comes to the cross: Jesus suffered to sympathize with our sufferings.
Jesus suffers immensely. In the garden of Gethsemane, during a prayer of utter anguish, Jesus’ sweat pours from his body like drops of blood. After a night of interrogation, Jesus is flogged and severely beaten by pain and loss of blood. Even though his nerves are firing themselves raw, some mocking soldiers jam a crown of thorns onto his head. The guards point him toward Golgotha. He is obligated by custom (if not law) to haul his own cross beam. When he can carry the cross no longer, and with no disciples mustering the courage to support Jesus, Simon from Cyrene carries it the rest of the way. Jesus’ wrists and ankles are punctured violently as he is nailed to the cross. The cross is then raised, and his wrists and ankles bear most of the weight, stretching and tearing in the process. When offered a sedative, he refuses. He does what he can to remain conscious to the end. To test that he is dead, soldiers puncture his side with a sword; water and blood gush out.
Jesus suffers immensely. These details are not told so that we participate like voyeurs in some sadistic torture. This grotesque suffering is God’s loving communication of sympathy in our physical suffering. Jesus loves us as he taught, and because he does, he suffers with us. In our pain, we are invited to join Jesus so he can share our pain.
Jesus is with us-in our pain, in our suffering, in our ghoulish encounters with abuse, and in our injustices. When we face debilitating deseases, when we see that our path leads into a dark valley, when we know that our days are running out, we can join Jesus-he’s been there and he suffers with us.

You know one thing about the creed which I think is awesome?
crucified, dead and buried,
he descnded into hell
etc
I believe these lines are not in chronological order, but that he experienced hell on the cross as his father forsook him and it was finished as he yelled the words ‘it is finished’. He did not need to go to physical hell to defeat anything or anyone, because it was finished. But I believe the creed to be doing a clever thing here.
Check this out:
Crucified, dead, and buried,
he descended into hell
on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures
he ascended into heaven
I reckon these things are written to oppose one another, for example, crucified and descended into hell go together
dead and rose go together
and buried into the ground and ascended into the air go together.
I’m not sure if this is an original thought, but I reckon it is one which is exciting, becasue it makes sense of the Bible, and the creed without claiming a necessary chronology.
Thoughts?

Josh,
My bad. I knew I should have looked up aseity before using it, because aseity means something different from what I thought it did. I figured aseity means that God does not depend on anything or anybody, more as a moral or relational attribute rather than an existential one. So, ditching the theolog-speak, I’ll have another go:
How does the crucifixion in itself reveal that God sympathizes with our earthly pain (as opposed to, say, other forms of capital punishment; or in a way that the Incarnation does not)?
I just took a look at Hebrews 5. Jesus suffered to learn obedience, obedience so he could be made perfect, perfect so he could become the source of salvation for all who obey him. (I don’t see sympathy with us here yet) What was the timeframe of the suffering from which Jesus learned obedience – that particular Friday, or the whole of his life, or . . . ?
How does Jesus share our pain? Is it because he was made like us in every way and lived among us, so that he is able to identify with the experience of everybody who’s ever lived?
I suppose what I’m trying to ask is, Is God’s sympathy with our earthly pain more an outcome of the Incarnation, or the Passion?
Or is this not the right question to ask?

Hey Steve,
From what I understand that the ‘Descended to the dead’ (or hell or the grave or “while on the cross he descended into hell”) line wasn’t in the first recorded version (around 215 AD).
I hold to your view that Jesus was in Hell on the cross, as he said “it is finished” and also to the other dude on the cross Jesus said “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). I take that to mean that Jesus was in paradise and not Hell after being on the cross.
In Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology book he says: “unlike every other phrase in the Creed, it represents not some major doctrine on which all Christians agree, but rather a statement about which most Christians seem to disagree. It is at best confusing and in most cases misleading for modern Christians. My own judgment is that there would be all gain and no loss if it were dropped from the Creed once for all”
Also apparently Augustine didn’t include that line.
Your point about the contrast with the “he descended into hell” vs “he ascended into heaven” is a good one. I have never heard of that idea before and I think I may mull that one over a bit.
More info on the history of the creed with copies that doesn’t have the line in it:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01629a.htm
http://www.lgmarshall.org/Creeds/apostles2.html
A link with Grudem’s quote that I copied from:
http://www.christianodyssey.org/history/apostles.htm

Rob the answer to your questions is…”True?”i would say it is all of the above, God’s sympathy with our earthly pain is found in the Incarnation, and the Passion, the two need to go hand in hand.
Now that i think about it i should probably have pushed that point a bit harder on sunday. The incarnation and the passion need to go hand in hand we cannot separated the two one from another.
Steve C,
i love it,you have just added another interpretation onto the list of man that i am now going to have to work my way through this week.
@rew
yeah i like grudem’s quote, i read it this morning and thoguht i could just start the sermon off with it and then say something down the lines of, “ok let’s pray…Amen, our next song….”

hehe, yeah that would be good

All you super-sage theologians -
Wait a minute.
Firstly, I don’t doubt that Jesus’s words to the other guy on the cross were true, so that “today” they both ended up in Paradise.
But: 1 Peter 4:19,20. Does this not imply some form of descent into the nether regions before popping back out into Paradise? Or perhaps does this action take place at the Ascension?
What, then, do you make of Paul’s extended riff on Deuteronomy 30 in Romans 10? In the original it reads, “cross the sea”; but in Paul’s take it reads, “descend to the deep, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.” There was a reason for Paul to introduce this variation on the theme, and I figure the most straightforward is that the Christ did descend to the dead.
Are we now in the curious position of advocating a realm for the unbelieving dead, which, contra the Creed, was never passed through by the Saviour?
Let’s go one step further. Does Hell have a physical existence?
Get the firewood and the stake ready . . .

And one more thing too:
Ephesians 4:8,9.
“The lower, earthly regions” or “the depths of the earth”?
Maybe I’m missing something here.

I am willing to admit that I may be way off track with these verses, but here goes… and please look for how I used the bible, as I am human and make many errors. I do not want to say something that is unbiblical and I very well might have below.
Romans 10:6-7 – I take this to say that we shouldn’t got looking high (the heavens) and low (the abyss) for God because he is near us (in our mouth and heart). For us to be saved we need faith in Jesus. To say we need another sacrifice or something else is wrong because Christ has already come down from the heavens, died, and rose again for us. Jesus doesn’t need to keep on doing it. We just need to have faith.
With the Deut 30:11-14 references I take that to also mean the same thing. Moses is saying these laws are not too hard for them and that they do not have to look high (heaven) or far (beyond the sea) as they have been told it and need lay it on their heart and mind (Deut 6:6, Deut 11:18-20).
I just don’t see how it says that Jesus went to Hell after his death.
Eph 4:9-10 – I understand this to mean that if you say that Jesus ascended from heaven it must then logically mean that he had to descend from heaven. He come down to earth and then ascended above all things kinda like in Phil 2:5-11.
1 Peter 3:19-20 – This is a tricky passage and I will take a wide stab in the dark (while wearing a blind fold!) at this one. If this does mean Jesus went to Hell, for what purpose was it for? I don’t think it was to offer salvation to the ones in hell as I didn’t think there are second chances after we die (Luke 16:25). Maybe it was to proclaim his Lordship to them? But I really don’t get is why Jesus would after his death go and talk specifically to the people of Noah’s day. I know God can do what he likes as he is God, and I really shouldn’t questions him, but I don’t understand that line of thinking. And how does Jesus talking to the people that were around in Noah’s day who are now in Hell after He died fit in with the context of the passage of Christians putting up with trials of suffering in 1 Peter 3:13-18?
2 Peter 2:5 has Noah as a herald (or preacher) of righteousness, maybe this is a stretch, but could the Spirit have preached through Noah to the people of his day…? Noah I assume had to put up with a lot of jeering and maybe persecution from others, considering the earth was filled with violence (Gen 6:11). Could the “spirits in prison” be the people who Noah had contact with?
Noah was alone standing up for his faith, in the end Noah (and his family) was saved from the judgement. Like Noah, the Christians even though they are faced with suffering and are probably in the minority they will be saved from judgement. They are still to herald or preach the gospel to the people who are in bondage and can not save themselves from judgement.
Thoughts?

The 1 Peter 3 one is the key. I believe this is speaking about Jesus preaching, by the work of the SPirit to those in the days of Noah.
After all, trinitarian theology must suggest that the eternal word of God, who was embodied as Christ, was the one who brought the word of God to the world, even through the prophets and even in the days of Noah. I think this is what 1 Peter 3 is saying.
In my reading, not many commentators of recent times agree with the literal descent into hell line.
For those who believe a literal descent (as opposed to on the cross being rejected by the Father) What does his descent into liteal hell achieve? For what purpose did he go there? Is there something which has not been achieved at the cross itself? If so, what does this do to the message of the cross, and why dont we preach Christ as Crucified, victor in hell, and resurrected?

Rob,
Couldnt descended to the dead simply mean buried?
This would seem to be the most logical answer to me.

Guys,
Very briefly (and I’ll come back in a day or two if I’m feeling up to it):
Descended to the dead could well mean just buried. I’m unsure of the wording of Apostles’ and Nicene, but I thought there were separate articles about “buried” and “descended to the dead”.
The reason I still want to suggest that Jesus passed through the realm of the dead between the cross and the Ascension is that it makes sense of 1 Peter 4:19,20 and Ephesians 4:8,9 – Jesus descended, preached to the captive spirits, and then led the captives in his train on his way up, as also in Psalm 68.