Matt Chandler - He Descended to Hell, the Third Day He Rose Again From the Dead

If you have your Bibles, why don’t you go ahead and grab those? If you don’t have a Bible, there should be a black hardback one somewhere around you. We’ll be in Matthew 27; we’ll read a good chunk of Matthew 27 into Matthew 28 during our time together. Again, I always want to get your eyes on the Scriptures and not on anything I’m thinking in particular. So, this is week six of our 12-week series on the Apostles' Creed. Just as a quick refresher before we dive into the text: the first is that we’re not preaching the Creed; we’re preaching the Bible, and the Creed helps us with some things that shape us and serve us in four particular ways that we’ll talk about here in a moment.

As a note, what we want to do is look at what the Bible has to say. A good way to think about this is that the Bible is the sun—it’s got all the heat, all the power, all the weight—and the Creed is kind of like the moon; it’s a reflection of what is authoritative, of what is true, of the very word of God, but it has no authority in and of itself. If it doesn’t line up with Scripture, then it is false. So, we’re not really preaching the Creed; we’re preaching the Bible. We’re just using the Creed as a jumping-off point because we believe that by diving into the Creed, it will help us as Christians create better symmetry. It’ll make us think about aspects of the nature and character of God that we might not be prone to consider right away.

It will also help with clarity; it will help us recognize where we might be thinking falsely about the Triune God of the universe. It will help us understand the community that God has invited us into, and lastly, it will help us counsel both ourselves and those around us. That’s why we’ve been in the Creed; it’s not magic. Reciting it doesn’t make you a Christian. We’re not witches; there are not incantations in the Christian faith. But it is a good and right thing to join in with a long line of Christians; we are a historic people. This isn’t a new thing that just started. So, when we read the Creed and when we say the Creed—especially when we read it together publicly—we’re doing two things: One, we’re rejecting the popular stories of our day; we’re saying we don’t agree with these popular narratives, these ways that the world is trying to disciple us, shape us, and mold us. Instead, we’re putting all our chips on this side; we’re saying we reject that and we believe earnestly this.

So, when we stand and read the Creed together here in a moment, here’s what we’re doing: Every week, I’ve tried to introduce a couple of isms to you that we’re rejecting as Christians. We’re saying we don’t believe that, and so the two isms for this week are: we fundamentally reject, as Christians, postmodernism. We do not believe that truth is relative and that your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth. We believe that there is a truth for all men everywhere across all time. We believe that it’s not narrow-minded; it’s true. It’s far more narrow-minded—and arrogant—to think that you possess what is true for you. Surely in your own life you know you can’t be trusted, right?

We would also reject emotionalism; we would reject the idea that our emotions tell us what is true. Rather, we would reject those things and say we’re not putting chips on that side of the table. We’re pushing all our chips over to this God of the Bible, this Triune God: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—three in one, creator of the universe. We believe that we put our hope in that.

So, with that said, would you stand with me as we read once again the Creed together? If you’re not a Christian and don’t want to do that, I’m fine. You can stay seated; you’ll find this to be a very safe place for you. So let’s read: «I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended to Hell; the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.»

Now, why don’t you have a seat? So, last week we covered at length that he, Jesus, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. We said these are the facts of the crucifixion of Christ, but what we wanted to do is get underneath the facts to the truth that lies beneath them. We determined that there were a bunch of truths, but we distilled it down to two truths: namely, that the cross of Jesus Christ reconciles us to God, and the cross of Jesus Christ creates a people, a covenant people that is both universal and global, and worked out locally. That’s where we spent our time last week, and now we get into one of the more confusing parts of the text.