The Gates of Hell... Hades... and the Powers of Death, Shall not Prevail
Devotion for Holy Saturday 2024
The Proper Liturgies for Special Days is a section of the Book of Common Prayer that receives too little attention in my opinion. This is true not only in the sense that people may not actually experience all of the liturgies (for Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the Easter Vigil), but also because we don’t reflect upon the aspects of our theology that they highlight.
Take Holy Saturday for example, perhaps the simplest liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. There is no celebration of the Eucharist, to commemorate Christ’s body being laid in the tomb. There is provision for the use of a Collect of the Day, readings, and potentially a homily, an anthem, and a closing with the Lord’s Prayer.
It’s a deceptively simple liturgy, however, because underlying it is a wealth of reflection on the nature of Jesus’ death. Consider the one page layout below:
Holy Saturday There is no celebration of the Eucharist on this day. When there is a Liturgy of the Word, the Celebrant begins with the Collect of the Day O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Old Testament Job 14:1-14, or Lamentations 3:1-9,19-24 Psalm 31:1-4,15-16 Epistle 1 Peter 4:1-8 Gospel Matthew 27:57-66, or John 19:38-42 After the Gospel (and homily), in place of the Prayers of the People, the Anthem “In the midst of life” (page 484 or 492) is sung or said. The service then concludes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Grace.
I would like to focus on the epistle lesson assigned for the day, 1 Peter 4:1-8, which says:
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. But they will have to give an account to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.
The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:1-8)
Specifically, I want to highlight a tradition of interpretation that attached to verse six, “For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.”
Before getting into a little of the history of interpretation that attaches to this verse, I want to suggest that there is a link between this and the words Jesus says to Peter after his confession of faith, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel:
[Jesus] said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’ (Matthew 16:15-19).
What does it mean to say that the Gates of Hades (earlier translations used the term Hell) will not prevail against the Church?
The first thing to consider what is intended by this verse. The old translation of “hell” while not completely inaccurate could sow confusion. What is intended here is the abode of the dead, what in Hebrew was called “sheol” and in Greek, Hades. Obviously there were different nuances to the understanding of the afterlife between the Jewish people and the Greeks. Indeed, there were differences among Jewish people of the first century, just as there are some disagreements between Christians today.
But it would be most helpful to realize that this place of the dead was seen as the place where all the dead went, good or bad. There was some sense that there might be punishment awaiting the wicked, something depicted in Jesus’ story of Lazarus and the Rich man, where the rich man, traditionally called Dives, is in a place of torment where he can see Lazarus, who suffered in life, being comforted in “Abraham’s bosom,” from which Dives was separated by a great chasm. It is this idea of there being a place of torment that makes the translation of Hell not completely inaccurate, but incomplete and misleading—what is being spoken of here is not Hell solely as place of torment—eternal or otherwise—but quite simply the place where all the dead go.
It is also important to note that in many modern translations of the Bible, including the New Revised Standard Version above, the word translated “hell” by older versions translating Jesus’ promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, is likewise translated Hades.
This is a case where the diversity of translations can give us some stepping stones to interpretation. For example, the Revised Standard Version translates the phrase as “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18, RSV).
So what is happening here? Often, when there are multiple overlapping methods of translating something into English, it means there are varied or intricate meanings that are in play. In other words, it may be that one needs to consider all of these different possibilities to get at the heart of the matter, and the inspiration of the traditions of the Church that arise, sometimes very early on.
What I would propose to you is that Holy Saturday is the day when we commemorate a distinctive aspect of Christ’s defeat of the powers of Sin, Hell, Death, and the Devil. We can only commemorate it in such a way because we are commemorating it as an anniversary of an event in light of what comes after, namely the Resurrection. Try as we might in some of our morose observances, Christians can never fully get away from the light and the power of Easter, and thank God for it.
A key element of Christ’s defeat of the ancient powers arrayed against humanity and human flourishing, is the doctrine known as the Harrowing of Hell. This is a doctrine explicitly taught in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran Traditions, and it is a doctrine widely held among Anglicans. The distinction between Anglicans and the other traditions is that Anglicans, consistent with our conviction that no one be compelled to believe something which cannot be proven from Holy Scripture, do not teach it as a necessary conviction, but instead remain open to other interpretations.
The divergence on this question arises from what exactly is intended b the creedal phrase “he descended to the dead” or “he descended into hell.” Traditionally, the church interpreted Peter’s tantalizing comment about the gospel being proclaimed to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 4:6) as describing the work that Christ was doing in a spiritual sense while his body was in the tomb on Holy Saturday. The image above from Fra Angelico depicts the outworking of this idea, where you see Christ having kicked down the door to the Hell & Hades, and you see demons cowering in fear as Christ grabs the spirits of the departed and leads them away—breaking the power of Sin (by dying on the cross and restoring us to right relationship with God), Hell (by releasing its captives, consigned to their prior lot by sin), death (by not being limited or contained by it, and ultimately rising from death to new life), and the Devil (who awaits his ultimate defeat, but in the meantime exists no longer as the lord of this world, but as a stateless and powerless monarch, now that the Son of David has taken his rightful place on the throne).
In this vision of the Harrowing, Christ descended to the (abode of the) dead and preached the Good News of salvation to them.
The alternative vision of what this passage means is that the Spirit of Christ, as the Word of God, was active in earlier times through the preaching of the prophets, for example, and that those who heard experienced the same freedom as those who lived after the days of Jesus. This was the preferred understanding of John Calvin and his reformed followers.
Given that the Church of England was a Reformed Catholic Church with strong influences from, for example, the Lutherans, as well, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there was some disagreement about this particular doctrine. In Thomas Cranmer’s original 42 Articles of Religion (1553), the doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell was spelled out in Article 3:
¶ Of the goyng doune of Christe into Helle.
[ 3] AS Christ died, and was buried for vs: so al∣so it is to be beleued, that he went downe in to hell. For the bodie laie in the Sepulchre, vntill the resurrection: but his Ghoste departing from him, was with the Ghostes that were in prison, or in Helle, and didde preache to thesame, as the place of. S. Peter dooeth testifie.
When the Articles were revised under Elizabeth into the 39 Articles, Article 3 was simplified to allow a wider degree of latitude in interpretation:
3. Of the going down of Christ into Hell.
As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also is it to be believed, that he went down into Hell.
All of this, is interesting (at least it is to me) but it ultimately amounts to discussions about the means of something that everyone agrees occurred: Christ’s defeat of Sin, Hell, Death, and the Devil. And on Holy Saturday we commemorate the fact that Jesus fought and won a battle for us that we could not fight and win ourselves. And whether one prefers to use the language of Hell or Hades, or the Powers of Death—they are all defeated in Christ, and his promise to the Church remains true today: all of these forces are on the defensive against God’s Church, and their gates will not stand, and will not protect them. Amen.
As the spiritual says, “The Lord will fight my battles for me, and he has given the victory.”