Why did the Lord Christ descend into Hades?

The psalmist says, “If I make my bed (sleep) in hell, behold, You are there” (Ps. 139:8), for the Lord Christ descended into Hades and set free those imprisoned in it. He opened His arms and embraced them, so that now Hades has no authority over them, to keep them, for its gates are broken. Our Lord Jesus accepted our humanity even unto death to give us new life in Him. By death, the Son of God descended into death, and proclaimed eternal life, granted to us through our union with Him.

The Jews were accustomed to building their tombs outside the cities, since anyone who touches the dead was considered to be defiled; but now, in Christ Jesus, Christians cherish the relics of the saints, kiss them, and offer praise to God. St. John Chrysostom describes the tombs of the saints as “tombs with life, tombs that give voice.”³²⁵ And St. Athanasius says, “For one who sees a snake trampled down, especially if he knows its former ferocity, no longer doubts that it is dead and completely weakened, unless he is perverted in mind and does not have even his bodily senses sound. For who, seeing a lion being played with by children, does not know that it is either dead or has lost all its power? Just as it is possible for the eye to see that these things are true, so when death is played with and despised by those

323 See also St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 14.18–19 (NPNF II/7:99).

324 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 4.11 (NPNF II/7:22) amended.

325 On Saint Eustathius 4, in St. John Chrysostom, The Cult of the Saints: Select homilies and letters , trans.,

Wendy Mayer, Bronwen Neil (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2006): p. 54.

believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end.”³²⁶

By nature, we are all on our journey from birth to death; but by grace, we are on a journey in the opposite direction. In baptism, we were buried with Christ, and now we are journeying towards eternal life. We die in order to be glorified together with Him. The apostle Paul says, “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Col. 2:12).