This is a follow up to my sermon from last Sunday.

This essay was originally published at Theologia.

 

After preaching on Psalm 110 last week, I want to offer a brief follow up.

 

The phrase “descended into hell” from the Apostles Creed has been controversial at times in church history. Not even the Reformers agreed amongst themselves what it meant. Should we keep this phrase in the Creed -- especially since not every early version of the Creed included it? What did the framers of the Creed mean by it? What should we mean by it when we recite it? What Scriptures speak to the issue?
 

Over the last couple weeks, as I've preached on Acts 2 and James 5, I've had opportunity to talk about the judgment Jesus brought on unbelieving Judaism in 70 AD when the city of Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed by Roman armies. This event is of great redemptive-historical significance, and while the entire New Testament had been completed before 70 AD, prophecies of and allusions to this great conflagration are all over the writings of the New Testament. Again and again, New Testament figures warn of a judgment that is near at hand and about to fall upon "this generation" of Jews who were then alive.