I have written previously on whether or not Jesus descended into hell here. But my friend, Andrew, tagged me in a comment for this article by Joe Rigney on Jesus descending to Hades wondering what my thoughts were . I couldn't comment on the Facebook post because it was shared by someone with restricted comments so I thought I'd share them with everyone. Here's the link to the article followed by quotes and my commentary.
"We all know that Jesus died... But what happened after he died? We know that his body was laid in Joseph’s tomb, but what about his human soul?"And what I find shocking is that Rigney conclude that..."Jesus’ soul went to Hades...." The reason why I find this shocking is because Joe Rigney blogs at desiringgod.org which is a staunchly reformed website named after the book, "Desiring God" by their chief figurehead, John Piper. Piper has spoken about and written his own blog post on this subject defending that the textual evidence for such a view is weak and he believes Jesus' soul went to Heaven when he died until his resurrection.
Asking what happened after Jesus died is a great question. I think that the article by Rigney does an excellent job of addressing it and gives a thoroughgoing explanation with an encouraging message at the end. In my post on whether Jesus descended into hell, I make a similar claim: "...[Jesus] was among the dead between his death and resurrection whether you take it as a literal grave of the dead or a metaphorical/spiritual underworld/realm." So, I'm in support of this article's conclusions as one of two options. However, I have not come to the same understanding as this author does.
"Death is separation, a dividing of things that ought to be united. Fundamentally, it is separation from God....But of course, death is more than just separation from God. Death also marks the separation of the soul from the body. God made human beings to be embodied souls and ensouled bodies, and death rips this union asunder."First, I don't agree with his definition of death. This isn't how we define the term or use it in most instances, and the Bible doesn't generally use it this way either. With rare exceptions where the word is used figuratively, 'death' means that the person dies physically. If one is a dualist, which I am not, and one thinks that the soul departs from the body at death this departure is still not death. This would be an effect of the death of the body. It is the body that is said to be dead and the spirit/soul is 'alive' and therefore not dead. Therefore death cannot mean separation in this instance, but the death of the body causes separation of body and soul.
Second, I don't think the soul/spirit is some immaterial substance that can survive death. With Martin Luther and many others I hold to 'soul sleep' and think that the human person is a whole that cannot be separated and survive. I am what in theological terms is called a 'monist'; I believe a human person is a single entity. Yes, it can be described as having various 'parts', but they make up one indivisible whole. In philosophy of mind this view is referred to as 'non-reductive physicalism'.
So I don't think of a human being as having a soul. I think you are a soul primarily because it is what I see in the Bible. In Genesis, for example, it says that God made man out of the dust and breathed the breath of life into him and he became a living soul. A 'soul' was not breathed into him, life was and the 'living dust' is called a living soul. Not only that, but after the fall, God says 'for dust you are and to dust you shall return.'. And the word for 'soul' is used for all of the other animals created beforehand. This is why the more modern translations say 'creature' instead of soul in this instance. They are being more consistent than the KJV and other translations where the creation of man is the first use of the english word 'soul' making it appear as a more unique creation than the text suggests in that manner (Though I do think the text is saying humans are unique by other means).
Now, I don't hold this monist view dogmatically and could very well be wrong. The point is that words we often think imply dualism are not doing so necessarily. I agree with Dr. Glenn Peoples who thinks that the primary reason for upholding a dualist view of human persons is cultural and theological (Read more about his defence of monism here and here). And what is the primary/only theological belief that requires dualism? The belief that when people die they are in Hades and Paradise or Hell and Heaven....or in the case of Rigney, Hades and Heaven!
More to come in part 2...
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