"He Descended to the Dead" - A Review

For many Christians, the three ecumenical creeds define the kernel of orthodox belief. The first time I encountered the Apostle’s Creed was one of my first Sundays at the Naval Academy. When we read that the clause, “He descended into hell,” caught my attention. Given the number of other things that were wrong with the service (it was being run by a very progressive chaplain of some semi-orthodox variety), that was the thing that led me to stop going to chapel.

Looking back, I don’t regret not sitting through the milk toast services in the chapel (though the organist later became a friend and, as it turns out, is a phenomenal human being), but that clause should not have been the radical point of theological departure that it became for me.

First, it appears that “he descended to the dead” is a better text and translation than “he descended into hell.” Second, it turns out that the Apostle’s Creed is extremely helpful at centering (though not exclusively defining) orthodoxy. Third, Christ’s descent to the dead is much more important that I supposed as an 18-year-old fundamentalist Baptist.

Over the years of seminary education, broader reading, and interaction with other Christian traditions, I came to see the value of the Apostle’s Creed. Michael Bird’s excellent volume, What Christians Ought to Believe, uses the Apostle’s Creed as a backbone for basic Christian instruction, which has been helpful in discipling my children.

I still didn’t really have a firm grasp on the descent clause until I read Matthew Emerson’s book, “He Descended to the Dead”: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday. In one fairly concise volume, Emerson has laid out most of the major arguments and presents a convincing case that not only should Evangelical Christians accept the descent clause, but that our theologies will be deficient if we do not.

The book is divided into three unequal parts. In Part One, Emerson makes the case for the descent clause. He engages with the major arguments over the proper wording (he moves us a way from Christ descending to hell) and affirms that this is a clause that has central importance to the Christian faith. The Apostle’s Creed is an extra-biblical text, but it is a faithful summary of what Scripture teaches, so Emerson carefully combs through the Bible to show that Christ ministering to the spirits in the lower reaches of the earth is, in fact, his descent to the dead. This does not involve the “harrowing of hell,” which some theologians have argued as support for universal salvation, but it does point to Christ’s Spirit descending to the place of the righteous dead while his body lay in the grave. For pastors and amateur theologians trying to place the descent clause in the Christian tradition, this is the essential reading.

Part Two is much longer, very thorough, and systematic. In six chapters Emerson discusses the importance of the descent clause to classic Trinitarian theology, the doctrine of creation, salvation, ecclesiology, eschatology, and Christological anthropology. This is an important section, which demonstrates how deeply important the theological concept is to a thick orthodoxy. This is also a very thorough section, so casual readers may find it helpful to read more quickly. The book concludes in Part Three, where Emerson meditates on some of the practical applications of the Christian life in a single chapter.

The first three chapters are worth the price of the book and are accessible to reasonably informed lay people. The six chapters of Part Two are more technical and denser, but worthwhile for those aspiring to grow in their theological understanding. The last chapter is a helpful meditation to bring things home.

This is the work of several years for Emerson. He carefully researched what has been a fairly hotly debated theological idea, which has fallen out of favor among many Evangelicals. This is a paradigm-shifting book that, because of the care in the research, covers most of the debates of any size and honestly represents the various perspectives on the passage. “He Descended to the Dead” is a masterpiece of contemporary theology. It well warranted the award from The Gospel Coalition for Academic Theology Book of the Year in 2019.

This is a volume that is likely to get less attention than it deserves because it tackles a topic that is far from the center of most people’s contemporary concerns about theological debates. And yet, it is a good example of theological retrieval, so it provides an example of how theology ought to be done as we read through the centuries of Christian thinkers. An excellent book that I highly recommend. This should shape the course of the debate on the descent clause for the next generation of Evangelicals.

"He Descended to the Dead": An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday

By Emerson, Matthew Y.

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NOTE: The publisher provided me a copy of this volume gratis with no expectation of a positive review.