(2.) The most probable opinion concerning Christ’s descent into hell, which I cannot but acquiesce in, is what is observed in this answer, as implying his continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day. The word hell, indeed, in our English tongue, generally, if not always, signifies that place of torment, which they are adjudged to, who are for ever excluded from the divine favour: thus it is said, concerning the rich man in the parable, that in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, Luke xvi. 23. But the Hebrew and Greek words,[[229]] which we often translate hell, have not only that, but another sense affixed to them, as they sometimes signify the grave; so our translators frequently render the word; as when Jacob speaks of bringing down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, Gen. xlii. 38. and elsewhere it is said, The Lord killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to grave, and bringeth up, 1 Sam. ii. 6. And it is taken for the state of the dead: thus Jacob, when he thought that his son Joseph was torn in pieces, without being laid in the grave, says, I will go down into the grave, unto my son, Gen. xxxvii. 35. There are many other places in which the Hebrew word is so rendered; and as for the Greek word, that, according to its proper derivation and signification, denotes the state of the dead, or the unseen state: thus our Saviour, after death, continued in the state of the dead, his soul being separate from his body till the third day, when his state of humiliation was finished.
This leads us to consider Christ’s state of exaltation.
Quest. LI., LII.
Quest. LI. What was the estate of Christ’s exaltation?
Answ. The estate of Christ’s exaltation comprehendeth his resurrection, ascension, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and his coming again to judge the world.
Quest. LII. How was Christ exalted in his resurrection?
Answ. Christ was exalted in his resurrection, in that, not having seen corruption in death, of which it was not possible for him to be held, and having the very same body in which he suffered, with the essential properties thereof, but without mortality and other common infirmities belonging to this life, really united to his soul, he rose again from the dead the third day, by his own power; whereby he declared himself to be the Son of God, to have satisfied divine justice, to have vanquished death, and him that had the power of it, and to be Lord of quick and dead; all which he did as a public Person, the Head of his church, for their justification, quickening in grace, support against enemies, and to assure them of their resurrection from the dead at the last day.
The former of these answers containing only a general account of what is particularly insisted on in some following answers, we pass it over, and proceed to consider Christ as exalted in his resurrection. And accordingly we may observe,
I. That he did not see corruption in death. Corruption according to our common acceptation of the words imports two things,
1. The dissolution of the frame of nature, or the separation of soul and body, in which sense every one that dies sees corruption; for death is the dissolution, or separation of the two constituent parts of man; which therefore the apostle calls the dissolution of this earthly tabernacle, 2 Cor. v. 1. Now when our Saviour is said not to see corruption, it is not to be understood in this sense; because he really died.