Saturday in the Tomb
Spontaneous Ponderings
Today is called Holy Saturday—the day after Jesus was crucified on the cross, and the day before he rose from the dead. What is your understanding of what Jesus did that day? I haven’t really thought about it much until I came across this graphic on Facebook:
This made me ponder: What did Jesus do on the Saturday in the tomb? Here are three options:
1. He descended into hell.
We frequently quote the Apostles’ Creed during church:
I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,
And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy catholic church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And the life everlasting. Amen.
In the Apostles’ Creed, after it talks about Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and burial and before it talks about him rising from the dead, it has this line: “He descended into hell.” Because of this, I always thought that Jesus literally paid the punishment for our sins by spending the time between his death and his resurrection in hell. One Catholic site (the Apostles’ Creed originated in the Catholic church) that I looked at said this is based on 1 Peter 3:19-20 (I’ll include 18 for completeness):
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.
That doesn’t seem to make a clear statement about Jesus descending into hell. Then I read an article on Got Questions. It attempted to debunk the line in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus descended into hell, stating it as an incorrect translation of the word sheol or hades. It’s an interesting article if you want to read it (click the blue link).
So basically, at the end of this, I’m conflicted about whether I believe Jesus actually descended into hell during his time in the grave. So what are other options?
2. He was in heaven.
When Jesus was on the cross, he spoke these famous words to one of the criminals he was crucified with: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). This gives the indication that Jesus and the criminal would be in heaven that day. If that’s the case, then it seems like immediately after he died, Jesus was in heaven. Many people base their belief that Christians are transported immediately to heaven after they die on this verse.
3. He rested.
The one option that I never thought about until I saw that graphic on Facebook was that during his Saturday in the tomb, Jesus rested. I kind of like the mental image of this. During the week of creation, after God had finished all his work, the Bible tells us in Genesis 2:2-3 that God rested:
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
The week before his death, Jesus did a lot of work. He entered Jerusalem triumphantly on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11), he cleared the temple (Matthew 21:12-17), he taught in the temple (Matthew 21:23-27 and more), he had the Last Supper with his disciples (Matthew 26:17-30), he was betrayed and abandoned (Matthew 26:47-56), he was on trial and beaten (Matthew 26:57-27:31), and he was crucified (Matthew 27:32-56). That seems like almost as much work as creation, and much more painful! And it was very significant work, because these actions of Jesus paid the penalty for sin once for the whole world (Hebrews 9:24-28).
On the cross, one of the phrases Jesus uttered was, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The work of paying the penalty for sins was done. It seems reasonable that after that, Jesus would rest on the Sabbath, just as God had done on the seventh day of creation.
But this begs the question: Where did he rest? Was it similar to being in a coma, with no awareness of anything? Was he in heaven? It doesn’t seem logical that hell would be restful, so if he was resting, he probably wasn’t in hell. I don’t know the answer to this. But it was an intriguing question to ponder anyway.
What do you think? Which option have you always believed? Do you think about it differently now? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.