4 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), 2 so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. 3 You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4 They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. 5 But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 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.
7 The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:1-8
This Holy Saturday is celebrated in some traditions as the Harrowing of Hell. I grew up United Methodist. When I joined the Presbyterian Church, I discovered an extra line in the Apostles Creed: “He descended into hell.” I don’t know why it wasn’t in the version that I learned as a kid, nor do I know whether it’s in the UMC liturgy now. Whatever the case may be, ancient Christian teachings include the concept that Jesus went down to the land of the dead, translated as “Hell” in some versions of the Bible and more literally as “Sheol” in others. My understanding is that this was viewed as a sort of holding place, where the dead would wait until the end of the age.
Last fall, I wrote about my views on universal salvation. Since then, I listened to an audiobook of David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved. I highly recommend it. I will greatly oversimplify his argument here, or at least my understanding of it.
First, we need to agree on “eternity.” Hart makes a compelling case that ancient Jews and early Christians did not have a conception of an infinitely long time. Rather, they thought in terms of the “present age” and the “age to come.” As the Gospel of Matthew ends, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Next, we should consider the various teachings of Jesus that seem to imply a sorting process between the righteous and unrighteous. There is also a sense in some parables of a debt that must be repaid. So yes, there seem to be some consequences to our actions in this life.
God is just: There are consequences to what we do, in this life and beyond. I don’t know what they are exactly, but Jesus did affirm Old Testament teachings about caring for the poor, the widow, the prisoner, and the foreigner. The “sorting” verses, such as Matthew 25:46, imply that the ultimate consequence is our separation from God.
But God is also merciful and gracious. God’s grace cannot be earned, merely accepted. Today, Holy Saturday, Jesus descended to the land of the dead to offer them a chance to accept his grace. Did they? I don’t know. Maybe some of them but not others. But Hart argues forcefully that at the end of this age, on the last day, we will also be raised to enjoy God’s presence in the age to come.
Sometimes the world seems like Palm Sunday: joyful, exuberant, proclaiming the goodness of life. Sometimes it seems like Maundy Thursday: somber, but with deep love. Sometimes it seems like Good Friday: the forces of evil on the march, God’s people scattered and hiding, hope gone. In 2020, the world seems like Holy Saturday. We are waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for new life. We see little reason for hope. All the news is bad. But the message of the Gospel is that actually, we live in an Easter world. God is hard at work, resurrecting what is dead in each of us, preparing us for a new day.