Jesus Himself Descended Into Hell

So far we've examined the false teaching of purgatory as a place of cleansing and the fact that hell, like heaven, is eternal and without end. We've been reminded that only in Jesus Christ, God's Son, does God's mercy and justice meet. Jesus himself proclaimed this by his descent into hell itself after his death upon the cross and before his resurrection. The Apostle Peter describes that great event in his words of encouragement to those believers who were being persecuted, slandered and reviled because of their godly lives and good behavior in Christ.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. - 1Pe 3:17-22 ESV

What is he saying? He is telling us that the residents of hell will forever continue to reject God's mercy and choose their own delusions, despair and darkness instead. But we have our Baptism to cling to.

1. Christ suffered at the hands of evil men in order that he might return us to God. His death was for us. The righteous One suffered the sorrows of hell and death so that we may never be forsaken, but may forever be the forgiven and reconciled children of God (Matt. 27:46).   
2. When he had completed his sacrificial work upon the cross, he committed his spirit into the hands of his heavenly Father (Luke 23:46). Joseph of Arimathea then placed Jesus' lifeless body into Joseph's previously unused tomb (Luke 23:50-53). 
3. While his body lay in Joseph's tomb, Jesus, "made alive in the spirit," went "in spirit" to the spirits in prison (Acts 22:4; 26:10). Why were they locked up, imprisoned? And who were they? They were the millions who lived before the great flood in the days of Noah (Gen. 6:3-13). They all had rejected the LORD God in spite of the fact that the LORD gave them a hundred years to repent (Gen. 5:32; 7:6) while Noah built the ark. 
4. What did Jesus proclaim? He proclaimed his victory over judgment, sin and hell. The people of Noah's day had all rejected God's mercy. In this hellish prison there was no change of heart on their part when Christ appeared among them. Like the demons who forever continue to be chained to gloomy darkness (2 Pe 2:4), these millions of deluded souls continued to reject their rightful LORD and God, just as  they had while living on the earth. 

There is a lesson for us all, writes Peter. Remember that Noah and his family, eight in all, were indeed saved by the ark that Noah obediently built during the hundred years that the LORD waited before the flood. We too have such an ark. It is called Baptism. In our Baptism we have a boat that delivers us from the fast approaching flood of God's judgment upon the rebellious world of this day. In our Baptism God comes to us with the Good News of Christ. He proclaims to us that when Christ died upon the cross, we died with him. When Christ rose on the third day, we rose with him. And now Christ sits at God's right hand. He is the Hand of God, with all authority in heaven and earth (Rom. 6:1-11). And now, since death no longer rules Christ, it no longer has mastery or dominion over us either. It has lost its power. We will never die. We will never be forsaken. We shall ever be with our Lord in that new creation that awaits us (Rom. 8:18-25).