Perhaps you will remember that the Apostle’s Creed was used to oppose the docetic teaching of Marcion and others like him. The docetists believed that matter was bad and therefore Jesus only seemed to have a material body. Therefore, as I mentioned in the introduction to this series, in order to oppose this false teaching the church made additions to the Creed, then called the Roman Symbol. Thus, it was in response to the error of the docetists that the phrase was added to the creed.

Perhaps the phrase that gets stuck in the throat when reciting the Apostle’s Creed is “He (Christ) descended into hell.” And if it does, it wouldn’t surprise me. It was difficult for John Calvin to utter the phrase despite having used the Apostle’s Creed to formulate his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Nor was he able to leave it without comment. He argued that Christ’s descent into hell happened on the cross prior to His death.[1] Perhaps you explain it in similar fashion. But have you ever wondered why this affirmation exists at all?

Perhaps you will remember that the Apostle’s Creed was used to oppose the docetic teaching of Marcion and others like him. The docetists believed that matter was bad and therefore Jesus only seemed to have a material body. Therefore, as I mentioned in the introduction to this series, in order to oppose this false teaching the church made additions to the Creed, then called the Roman Symbol. Thus, it was in response to the error of the docetists that the phrase was added to the creed.

But there is something that we need to keep in mind. The original phrase in the Roman Symbol did not say, “He descended into hell.” It said that Christ descended into the nether world, or Sheol, that is, the grave. The whole point of the addition was to affirm not Christ’s descent into hell but Christ’s physical death. In other words, the physical death of Christ needed to be emphasized in the face of docetists who were saying that Christ didn’t have a body that could die. In fact, some second century versions of the Roman symbol substituted “dead” for “descended to the netherworld.” Clearly the creed was formed and used to battle the docetists who denied the humanity of Christ. Consequently, this phrase, now rendered “descended into hell” was originally meant to teach of the bodily death of Christ.

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