So, when Jesus was put to death on a cross that Friday morning, to all the Jews who were watching, he was seen as accursed. And it wasn’t just that there was chaos, confusion and disorder all around in the scene at Golgotha; but that smell of divine displeasure filled the air. It was a scene that was made all the more incongruous because the One on the cross exposed to God’s curse was the very one of whom the Father had said just three years previously, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’ (Mt 3.17).

There is nothing more central to the Christian message than the cross of Christ. It is there in the shadows of the Old Testament. It explodes to the fore in the New, dominating the landscape of the Gospel records. And from the very first sermon preached by Peter on the Day of Pentecost it becomes the hallmark of authentic apostolic ministry. As Paul tells the church in Corinth: ‘For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (1Co 2.2).

Paradoxically, as church history unfolds in the post-apostolic era, it is the cross that is chosen as the emblem of the Christian Faith. In an age when death by crucifixion was still commonplace and the very shape of the cross was enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine, the church opted, not for a dove, or an image of the empty tomb; but for the cross to be its corporate logo. That perhaps more than anything is an indicator not only of its significance, but also its centrality to all that the gospel says.

We see the scale of its significance reflected in the Apostles’ Creed in the way that it skips immediately from confessing the incarnation of Christ to confessing his death upon the cross:

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

Was crucified, died and was buried;

He descended into hell.

Without so much as the blink of an eye, the architects of the Creed gloss over 33 years of Jesus’ life on earth and three years of his earthly ministry almost as though they were of no consequence! In so doing they signal the cross as being the defining moment of salvation history and therefore also the keynote of the good news of redemption we preach to the world.

That said we cannot help but wonder at what seems like an unusual choice of words in this particular clause: ‘He descended into hell’. It is made all the more intriguing when we realise that this third line of the triplet was a much later addition to the Creed — most likely in the latter part of the Fourth Century AD. Not surprisingly, it is an addition that has sparked no small measure of controversy and debate as to its precise meaning.

Some have argued that it simply signifies Jesus’ burial; but that has little merit since it would represent a redundancy of language given the previous clause. Others have argued cogently on the basis of its Greek form as being ‘Hades’ that it speaks of his descent into the realm of the dead for the period between his death and resurrection. This view is argued by a shining galaxy of theologians and preachers and cannot be dismissed lightly. But the problem with that interpretation is that it does not reflect the weight and balance of the biblical exposition of the cross and all that it accomplished. So, given the economy of words employed in the Creed, it seems odd to include a statement that reflects something of a mere footnote in the biblical account and its explanation.

It seems more sensible to follow John Calvin (as he in turn followed expositors of the Creed before him) and see its inclusion in the Creed as a summary of the two clauses about the death of Christ that precede it. So on the one hand it sums up the full horror of what is stated almost in a matter-of-fact way in those lines; but on the other hand it provides us with the key to seeing all that the cross accomplished for God’s people.

Nowhere is the saving significance of Calvary more dramatically expressed than in the words of John the Baptist at as Jesus began his earthly ministry. Pointing the crowds to Jesus he says, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1.29). Indeed, it bears noting that, in a way that is reflected in the emphasis of the Creed, John the Evangelist skips from confessing the incarnation of Christ to proclaiming his death! On these two great truths the gospel hangs. Three things are worth highlighting in relation to what the two Johns say as a means of explicating what is said in the Creed about the death of Christ.

The Innocent Suffering in the Place of the Guilty

John the Baptist’s ministry as the forerunner of the Christ was geared to expose human sin and guilt and the need for both pardon and cleansing. Its limitation was the fact that he could expose this need, but he could do nothing to deal with it. So, when pressed by a delegation from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem to say who he was, responded by saying: ‘I am not the Christ’ (Jn 1.20). Indeed he systematically denied that he was to be identified with any of the messianic figures bound up with the hope of salvation in the Old Testament. His only message was that they should be looking to the One ‘who comes after me’ (Jn 1.19-28).

However, when Jesus appeared among the crowds, without any prompting or collusion between himself and John, John declared, ‘Behold the Lamb!’ In language that spoke unmistakably of death, the Evangelist uses the testimony of the Baptist to introduce the ministry of Jesus at its inception by pointing to its climax and conclusion. In other words, both Johns are saying that the entire purpose of Jesus’ coming was to do for guilty sinners what they could not do for themselves – die to take their sin away!

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