By the words "he descended into hell" I mean that, as soon as Christ was dead, his blessed Soul went down into that part of Hell called Limbo.
In the Apostles' Creed, the phrase "he descended into hell" does not refer to the Hell of the damned. The Church teaches that after His death, Christ descended to the abode of the dead, where the righteous who had died before His coming awaited redemption. Traditional catechisms often refer to this state as the Limbo of the Fathers or Abraham's Bosom. These holy men and women, including figures such as Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets, could not enter Heaven until Christ had completed His saving work. By descending among the dead, Jesus proclaimed His victory over sin and death and brought the just into the fullness of salvation. This event demonstrates that Christ's redemption extends to all times and all peoples. The descent into hell forms an important part of the Paschal Mystery, showing that Jesus truly experienced death and triumphed over it from within.
The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was raised from the dead presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, but to free the just who had gone before him.
1 Peter 3:18-19
For 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.
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