I grew up in a Methodist Church where we confessed the Apostles Creed without the descent into hell clause. When I discovered that some confess the Apostles Creed with the descent into hell clause I wondered why it was not in the creed we confessed at my Methodist Church. When I was an Anglican priest one of my parishioners protested the descent into hell clause in the Apostles Creed we confessed on the grounds that it was not biblical. He had heard that it was not biblical from a sermon preached by his former Presbyterian pastor. In the few Evangelical/Protestant churches where the Apostles Creed is confessed the descent clause is usually left out because it is said that it is unbiblical. I have been surprised over the years with these types of comments because of the clear passages in Holy Scripture concerning Christ’s descent into hell. I have noticed that Christ’s descent and conquering of hell is a necessary truth for the salvation of all mankind which is why we see it in all of the icons of the resurrection of our Lord. The following quotation is from Fr. Michael Pomasansky.
“Christ after his death on the Cross, descended in His soul and in his Divinity into hell, at the same time that his body remained in the grave. He preached salvation to the captives of hell and brought up from there all the Old Testament righteous ones into the bright mansions of the Kingdom of Heaven. Concerning this raising up of the righteous ones from hell, we read in the Epistle of St. Peter: For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, the He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison (I Peter 3:18-19). And in the same place we read further: For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to God in the spirit. (I Peter 4:6). St. Paul speaks of the same thing: quoting the verse of the Psalm, When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men, the Apostle continues: Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph. 4:8-10).
To use the words of St. John Chrysostom, “Hell was taken captive by the Lord Who descended into it. It was laid waste, it was mocked, it was put to death, it was overthrown, it was bound” (Homily on Pascha). – Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Fr. Michael Pomazansky
