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[b] The term 'Harrowing of Hell' refers not merely to the idea that Jesus descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but to the rich tradition that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over inferos, releasing Hell's captives, particularly Adam and Eve, and the righteous men and women of the Old Testament period.
However, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the United States in 1784, John Wesley sent the new American Church a Sunday Service which included the phrase "he descended into hell" in the text of the Apostles' Creed. [59] It is clear that Wesley intended American Methodists to use the phrase in the recitation of the Creed.
In English usage the word "Hades" first appears around 1600, as a transliteration of the Greek word "αΎ…δης" in the line in the Apostles' Creed, "He descended into hell", the place of waiting (the place of "the spirits in prison" 1 Peter 3:19) into which Jesus is there affirmed to have gone after the Crucifixion.
This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into Hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead." It adds: "But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there."
According to Christian tradition, Christ descended to hell after his death in order to free the souls there; this event is known as the Harrowing of Hell. This story is narrated in the Gospel of Nicodemus and may be the meaning behind 1 Peter 3:18–22. [52] [n 2]
Calvinist theology draws a distinction between Christ's "state of humiliation", which consisted of his suffering and death, and his "state of exaltation", which consisted of his resurrection, ascension, and heavenly session.
A detail from Hieronymus Bosch's depiction of Hell (16th century). In Christian theology, Hell is the place or state into which, by God's definitive judgment, unrepentant sinners pass in the general judgment, or, as some Christians believe, immediately after death (particular judgment).
OF THE FINAL STATE: We believe that hell is the place of torment, prepared for the devil and his angels, where with them the wicked will suffer the vengeance of eternal fire forever and ever and that heaven is the final abode of the righteous, where they will dwell in the fullness of joy forever and ever. Matt. 25:41, 46; Jude 7; Rev. 14:8-11 ...