A Homily on the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed
As we look at our “Catechetical Foundations,” we have spent the last two entries looking at the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, the section about our Lord Jesus. Two entries ago, we discussed Christ’s Divine Sonship and his Lordship over us. Last time we discussed Christ’s conception, birth, and suffering. This entry we are looking into his crucifixion, death, burial, and descent into hell. By way of reminder, here is the second article of the Creed in which we confess that we believe:
In Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty: from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I recently received a review copy of a 2025 book on the Nicene Creed by the theologian and pastor Kevin DeYoung. In this book DeYoung reminded me that theologians have historically divided the work of the Lord Jesus into two main “states,” the “state of humiliation” and the “state of exaltation.” The state of humiliation consists of the Lord’s incarnation, suffering, death, burial, and descent. The state of exaltation consists of Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, session, and return.[1] The Creed addresses all of these; as our Office of Instruction reminds us, both Jesus’ humiliation and exaltation are necessary for our redemption.[2]
Now, in the Lord’s birth and incarnation, he has indeed already humbled himself. As we talked about last week, Jesus set aside his divine Glory and took our mortal flesh upon himself. He joined in our sufferings and truly became one of us. Presently, we will look at the heart of the Lord’s humiliation: his death on the cross. Indeed, while the entirety of the Lord’s work is the Gospel, St. Paul himself uses the phrase, “Jesus Christ and him crucified” as shorthand for the Gospel (1 Cor. 2:2).[3] We can see why St. Paul centers the Gospel on the cross when we look at our Provincial Catechism, To Be a Christian. It tells us what Jesus accomplished on the Cross:
Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures by dying on the Cross as a sacrifice for sin in obedience to his Father. He thereby showed the depth of the love of God for his fallen creation, satisfying the justice of God on our behalf and breaking the power of sin, Satan, and death.[4]
In most of the questions on the Crucifixion, To Be a Christian cites the prophecy from Isaiah 53. Earlier, we talked a bit about that passage, as well as the how the other sacrifices in the Old Testament point to the “one oblation” Christ offered to be a “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.”[5] Indeed, we find passages throughout the Old Testament, not only in the laws relating to Levitical sacrifices, which point us to Christ’s sacrifice.[6] Speaking of Christ’s final words on the Cross, “It is finished,” St. Cyril of Jerusalem sums up the Patristic approach to Old Testament fulfillment in the Cross, writing, “For the mystery has been fulfilled; the things that are written have been accomplished; sins are forgiven.”[7]
Similarly, throughout the New Testament, we are reminded that Christ’s death on the Cross is because of God’s love for us. John 3:16 is perhaps the best summary of this teaching: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Commenting on this verse, St. Hilary of Poitiers, known as the “Athanasius of the West,”[8] writes:
God, who lived the world, gave his only begotten Son as a manifest token of his love… Gifts of price are the evidence of affection: the greatness of the surrender is evidence of the greatness of the love… Here is the proof of his love and affection, that he gave his own, his only begotten Son.[9]
The way God loved us was that he gave his only begotten Son to die on the cross. This is how he satisfied his justice. This is how he redeemed us. This is how he broke the power of our great enemy. The Lord Jesus died in our place. He took the penalty for our sins. This is indeed the heart of the Gospel. A second-century Apologetic work, The Epistle to Diognetus, sums this up in a beautiful passage is often called “the great exchange”:
He himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal, For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors![10]
It’s hard to top these words from one of the earliest post-Apostolic writings. This great exchange is why we owe Christ our unfeigned thanksgiving and praise. He gives his life for us and gives us new life; all we bring to the table is our sin. What mercy, grace, and love! I’m almost tempted to close out the present entry right here!.
But then we wouldn’t talk about the Lord’s burial or descent, nor would we talk about the connection between the Cross and Holy Communion. Indeed, as St. Paul saith, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Cor. 11:26). In the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, we come before him in humility and thanksgiving, participating in his sacrifice, joining with him in true fellowship. Bishop John Jewel, one of our most important Reformers, puts it this way:
In this mystery of the death of Christ, his death and passion is renewed to our remembrance. We are so moved to sorrow for our sins, which have been the cause of his death; and to be thankful for the great mystery of God, which by this means wrought our redemption, as if we did see him present before our faces hanging upon the Cross. We know that Christ hath left his sacraments to his Church, that they might be helps to lift us up into Heaven. By them we are joined with Christ, and made partakers of his passion.[11]
Baptism, our other chief Sacrament, also points us to Christ’s death. And it points us to his burial, the next part of the Creed. You may recall last week’s Epistle from Romans 6, where St. Paul writes, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
The Epistle gives us our main takeaway when looking at Christ’s death and burial. Just as Christ died, was buried, and rose again, so is our old life crucified and buried, and we are raised to new life in Christ. And thus, if you are a Christian, you are called to walk in that new life. Live like a new person, a redeemed person, who is following the footsteps of Christ. Live up to who you are in your baptism. Live like one who has been joined to Christ.
This does, of course, presuppose that you have indeed been raised to new life. It presupposes that not only have you been baptized, but you have also put your trust, your faith, in the Lord Jesus as the one who will save you from sin and death. If that is not the case, repent of your sins, put your trust in Christ, and (if not already baptized) be baptized! Only then can you walk in newness of life!
Indeed, none of us deserves the privilege of being joined to Christ in the Sacraments. Each and all of us deserve the wrath of God, the wrath that our Lord Jesus satisfied in his death. Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth I, put it like this in a prayer for her kingdom:
For formerly when I was in my mother’s womb, a fall into sin stained me, on account of which, like the rest of the descendants of Adam, I was most worthy of miscarriage; yet your fatherly hand led me out from thence and allowed me to be born into light – born to die with Christ and, dead, be reborn to enjoy eternal life.[12]
Finally, we come to Christ’s descent into hell. This is probably the most confusing part of the Creed. When speaking of Christ’s descent, there are two things we must keep in mind. First, the clause, “He descended into hell,” was a late addition to the Apostles’ Creed, and it does not have a direct parallel in the Nicene Creed. Nevertheless, the belief was widespread much for many centuries prior to making its way into the Apostles’ Creed and has persisted since.[13] Indeed, while the descent into hell is also affirmed in our Articles of Religion in terms barely longer than the single clause in the Creed, it has always generated quite a bit of discussion among theologians over the centuries!
Second, “hell” in this context does not mean the place of damnation. Rather, it means the place of the dead, corresponding to the Greek Hades or the Hebrew Sheol. In fact, there’s a rubric before the Apostles’ Creed in our American edition of the Prayer Book that says, “And any Churches may, instead of the words, He descended into hell, use the words, He went into the place of departed spirits, which are considered as words of the same meaning in the Creed.”[14] This is, of course, much too awkward of a replacement, which is why modern versions of the Creed usually say, “descended to the dead” instead.
The point is that in confessing “he descended into hell,” we are not saying that Christ suffered damnation. Rather, the basic confession is an element of Christ’s true human death on our behalf. When humans died, their spirits went to the place of departed spirits. Since our Lord is truly man, the same was true for him. Richard Hooker, one of the most important of the early Anglican theologians, elaborates. In discussing the essential beliefs related to our Lord’s true divinity and true humanity, he points out that between the Lord’s death and resurrection, Christ’s Person was simultaneously in the grave (in his body), severed from his body (in his human spirit), and “inseparably joined with both” (in his divinity).[15] He descended into hell, the place of departed spirits, because that’s what happened to humans when they die.
Nevertheless, we should also mention that there is a longstanding tradition of Christ’s descent being something of a raid or jailbreak on the enemy of our souls. Indeed, since the Lord’s resurrection, the spirits of those who are joined to Christ are before him in heaven while awaiting the final resurrection. A captivating version of this tradition is preserved in the apocryphal “Gospel of Nicodemus” which tells the story of the “Harrowing of Hell” from the perspective of Simeon, the man who blessed Jesus in the Temple when he was a baby. Our own Prayer Book nods towards this tradition in using the passage from 1 Peter 3 that includes, “he went and preached unto the spirits in prison” as our Epistle on Easter Eve. Whether or not that’s the best application of the passage is a debate best left up to the Bible scholars. But what we do know is that our Lord’s descent is an important part of the story of our salvation, and the passage in question is a good choice for Easter Eve. As the liturgical historian Massey Shepherd writes, “Whatever may be the truth as regards these conflicting interpretations, the passage as a whole is aptly chosen for this day, since it links the death and resurrection of our Lord with the new life of redemption we enter upon at our baptism.”[16]
Ultimately, that’s the glory of Christ’s “state of humiliation,” especially his death, burial, and descent: through his humiliation he won victory for us. We could not save ourselves from the curse of sin. We could not save ourselves from slavery to the world, the flesh, and the devil. So, Christ humbled himself to save us. He died a shameful death that we might be honored. He was buried so that we might be raised. May we follow his example of humility, that we might be raised up on the last day and join his glory.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
- Kevin DeYoung, The Nicene Creed: What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written, Wheaton: Crossway (2025), 54-55. ↑
- BCP 1928, 284. ↑
- DeYoung, 55. ↑
- The Anglican Church in North America. To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism. Edited by J.I. Packer and Joel Scandrett. Wheaton: Crossway (2020), 42. ↑
- BCP 1928, 80. ↑
- See, e.g. ACCS.NT.4b, quotations from Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, and Tertullian on the Binding of Isaac (308), Origin and Jerome on the legend of Adam’s skull and Golgotha (309-310), and Leo the Great and Cyril of Jerusalem (322). ↑
- Cyril of Jerusalem, “Lecture XIII,” The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, in NPNF2.7, 91 (13.32). ↑
- ACCS.NT.4a, 380. ↑
- Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 6.40, quoted in ACCS.NT.4a, 126. ↑
- The Epistle to Diognetus, chapter 9, in ANF.1, 28. ↑
- John Jewel, Treatises on Scripture and the Sacraments, edited by Andrew Brashier, South Bend: The North American Anglican Press (2022), 94-95. Originally published in 1570. ↑
- Elizabeth I, Collected Works, “Prayer for the Administration of the Kingdom,” 158-159. Quoted in RCS.NT.7, 326. ↑
- W.H. Griffith-Thomas, Principles of Theology, Article 3, “The History of the Doctrine.” ↑
- BCP 1928, 15, emphasis in the original. ↑
- Richard Hooker, The Word Made Flesh for Us: A Treatise on Christology & the Sacraments from Hooker’s Laws, Edited by Brad Littlejohn and Patrick Timmis. The Davenant Press (2024), 16. Originally published in 1597. ↑
- Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, New York: Oxford University Press (1950), 162. ↑
