Hello, friends, and welcome back to Verity Podcast's Holy Week series.

Today is Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday when Jesus was crucified and the day of his resurrection, which we call Easter.

Now, many people don't know what happened on Holy Saturday. All is quiet. Jesus is in the tomb.

We know that Luke 23 tells us that Jesus' female disciples went home to prepare spices for

Jesus' body, probably late on Friday, since Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, and work would have been prohibited. So as Jesus

lays in the grave that was donated to him since he wouldn't have had one, everyone is mourning.

They think all is lost. Their rabbi, their teacher, he's dead. This is not ending the way anybody thought it would end. Now, here's something interesting.

In the Apostles' Creed, which is the oldest statement of faith in Christianity, goes back to the

first century, there's an intriguing phrase which says, Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was

buried, he descended unto hell. So did Jesus actually descend to hell during his three days in the

tomb? Now, if you've never heard of this idea, it's called the harrowing of hell. And it's based on 1 Peter 4.6,

which says, for this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged

in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. So over the

course of church history, there have been different perspectives on this.

But the harrowing of hell teaches that Jesus descended into Abraham's bosom, Luke 16 talks about this, or shale, which is the grave, to bring the gospel to the dead Old Testament saints.

So Revelation 20 talks about how the Lake of Fire, final judgment,

and Hades or Shale are different places. So Hades or Shale refers to the grave. It doesn't mean

hell. Hell is the lake of fire or final judgment. So Apostles Creed uses the word hell for shale, and this often

confuses people, and it's the movement of Hebrew into English. But it's not talking about Jesus going

to literal hell, like the place of judgment, but descending to the grave. And so specific denominations believe that when Jesus

descended to the grave, he preached the gospel to the dead Old Testament saints, fulfilling their

faith in God, and bringing them out of the grave, or Abraham's bosom, into eternity with God.

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